


Be Seeing You

by Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland), AlphaFlyer



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Prisoner (1967)
Genre: 1960s, Big Bang Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Cold War, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Fashion Crimes, Marvel Universe Big Bang, Mind Games, Mind Manipulation, Mission Fic, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/pseuds/AlphaFlyer
Summary: At the height of the Cold War, freelance American assassin Clint Barton and rogue Russian spy Natasha Romanoff find themselves abducted and transferred to a strange village of uncanny cheerfulness. Guarded by an unknown foe, the two rival agents must learn to work together to escape. But there is more at play behind pastel walls and stripy fashions than either of them can even begin to imagine.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 25
Kudos: 55
Collections: Marvel Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/gifts).



> Inkvoices not only created the great art in this work, she also created an [**amazing video trailer**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635027) for this fic. Do treat yourself to checking it out and leave her a kudo while you're there!
> 
> (Disclaimer: The village map embedded in this chapter is original _The Prisoner_ artwork from the series, all other graphics were created by Inkvoices.)

_Fallaces sunt rerum species et hominum spes fallunt_

(Appearances are deceptive and betray the hopes of men)

The vague, unsettling feeling that things aren't quite the way they are supposed to be is the first thing to pierce Natasha Romanoff’s consciousness when she wakes on a calm spring day in 1964.  
  
Even though her gut insists it should be late afternoon, the rays of sunshine filtering in through the familiar curtains of her apartment suggest that it is morning. Worse still, rather than waking in her modest but perfectly serviceable bed, she's slouched somewhat inelegantly in the single high-backed chair, one of the crocheted doilies on its armrests dangling precariously. Deep behind her eyes, a headache is drumming with an elan to match Moscow's finest military band.  
  
With careful movements, she assesses her surroundings. The noises are all wrong - more precisely, there aren't any. No busy East German street outside her window, with its trains passing on their tracks across the street.  
  
No accompanying tangible leaded exhaust from the communist-quality _Trabant_ or _Wartburg_ cars rattling past either. Instead: _roses._ The cloying scent of flowers in full bloom drifts through the crack in the window. Valiantly fighting down nausea, Natasha moves hand over hand along the wall until she can look outside.  
  
The sight almost breaks her calm façade.  
  
Outside her window the grey uniformity of hastily erected post-war residential property has disappeared. Instead, the Worker's Paradise has been replaced by a lush green panoply of meticulously maintained lawns greets her, embraced on all sides by a hillside terraced with small, white-trimmed houses in all colors of the rainbow. Everywhere she looks there are determinedly cheerful striped awnings.  
  
Reality settles in quickly: no matter how impossible, some unknown party has abducted her right along with her current place of residence. Her eyes, ears, and nose don’t lie.  
  
Natasha fights down her growing sense of unease and sets out to investigate the disconcertingly familiar yet unfamiliar space. Despite the otherwise detailed reproduction, when she nears the front door it opens by itself, like a thing straight out of science fiction.  
  
Stepping outside squashes the last faint trace of hope that the window was just a cunning projection. She passes through the doorway and, instead of a German staircase that forever smells like boiled cabbage, Natasha discovers a quaint sitting nook and two iron-wrought chairs on pristine white gravel, shaded by a striped umbrella. They are surrounded by rose hedges in lavish bloom, their scent even more overpowering now than inside, with the faint tang of the sea a welcome distraction on the breeze.  
  
_The sea!_  
  
Whoever managed to get her out unnoticed from under the iron curtain and into this balmier climate must have some serious means at their disposal. She mentally runs down the list of her more powerful clients and enemies, to consider whom she might have angered enough to warrant this kind of elaborate response, when they obviously could have just killed her and be rid of her. The fact that she comes up empty troubles her more than she is prepared to admit, even to herself.  
  
Natasha assumes a relaxed but curious gait, grateful for the fresh air clearing her head a little more with every step. She lets her feet carry her down the path, through an archway, and further towards a steep and narrow cobblestone road. As far as the eye can see, there are picturesque footpaths, lush, meticulously maintained greenery, and small bungalows of different shapes and sizes.  
  
All the buildings in view are painted in pastels, with houses and the large number of sign-posts all sporting matching striped awnings. She cannot help but wonder whether the entire neighborhood was designed by somebody with a sad case of candy cane related trauma. The pervasive sense of inauthenticity makes Natasha's stomach roil again, her steps quickening on their own accord.  
  
Despite the colors, neither people, nor architecture and vegetation, offer the slightest hint of individualism. Instead, they seem subjugated to a greater vision of uniform design. Natasha shudders with the implications.  
  
As she approaches what must be the town center, she finally spots people milling about in the distance. From this far away they are interchangeable, all in strange, garishly striped capes and a variety of hats. Just this morning - the _real_ morning back in Germany, where by all laws of logic she should still be - she'd put on her plain navy striped trousers and a matching blouse. A perfectly reasonable choice to blend in at the time, but here her chosen colors seem conspicuous.  
  
Time, place, setting, any and all sensory information. What else has changed? What else has she lost, or been made to accept?  
  
The memory of countless invasions, intrusions, and false recollections momentarily threatens to drown out her thoughts and render her incapable of movement.  
  
Natasha balls her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms, and wills the pain to bring her back to the here and now - wherever that may be. She shakes her head, straightens her shoulders, and walks on.

_“She’s awake, sir.”_  
  
_“I can see that.”_  
  
_The voice carries a barely concealed irritation, like that of a man who would prefer the unseen to the obvious, but hates having either of them pointed out to him. The other, cowed, tries again, this time with a different tack._  
  
_“What do you think she is doing, Number Two?”_  
  
_Mollified, Two picks up his tea cup._  
  
_“What spies do best, Thirty-nine. Gather information, of course. Let’s see how she goes about it, shall we? Watch carefully - her training has been thorough and you should see some exemplary tradecraft at work.”_  
  
_He takes a sip of tea and allows himself a moment of quiet contentment._  
  
_“Sir, if you would allow me…”_  
  
_“What now? Didn’t you listen to what I just said, Thirty-nine? About watching and learning?”_  
  
_Thirty-nine’s voice quivers with the helplessness of someone who knows that he is overstepping a boundary, but also one who understands the consequences might be more severe if he does not._  
  
_“I did, sir, and I am very sorry. But the communications light is blinking.”_

Hangovers are generally deserved - you’re supposed to remember what you did and with whom. So when Clint Barton wakes up with a head that feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, a funky taste in his mouth, and absolutely no recollection of what continent he’s supposed to be on, his first instinct is to feel cheated out of a good bottle of Scotch.  
  
Gradually things swim into focus, although as it turns out that’s not exactly helpful. Last thing he remembers is being in Guatemala City, but here he is, back in the place he’s been renting in London. One of those miniature flats that needy and opinionated war widows rent out to the anchorless human flotsam drifting around Europe - musty and quaint, two doilies short of a tea party.  
  
"The fuck?"  
  
Something that may or may not be his voice comes out of his mouth. Sitting up, he tries to get rid of the vile taste on his tongue, but if he doesn’t have enough saliva to make words he sure as hell doesn’t have enough to spit.  
  
_Water. Need water._  
  
There’s the usual pitcher and cup on the nightstand beside his bed. He sniffs the contents out of a mixture of habit and paranoia. Who’s to say that whatever is currently buzzing around in his head didn’t come from that pitcher? It’s just water, by the looks of it, but there are a lot of clear liquids that aren’t. He pours it into the cup and sniffs it again, before dipping in his tongue.  
  
Water it is. Clint swishes the welcome liquid around his mouth and through his teeth, spitting the first mouthful into the plant pot in the corner before finally taking a swig.  
  
_Better._  
  
Now to the real question: how the hell did he get back to London from Central America, and without remembering the trip? Drugs? He doesn’t remember taking any and, try as he might, he doesn’t remember who he last met with, who might have slipped him something, or why.  
  
Okay, maybe the ‘why’ can be parked for now. He’s been busy pissing off a lot of people and could probably make a list. Still, the _how_ bears thinking about.  
  
He heads over to the window and with unnecessary force pulls up the blind that covers half of it. Outside is a bright sunny day that should be hurting his eyes but isn’t, effectively ending the hangover theory. That’s not the strangest thing, though: outside the window lies a technicolor world bathed in a mixture of pastels and bright colours, and accentuated with stripes.  
  
_So many stripes._  
  
It’s like someone went around the landscape and littered it with barber poles, with those stripes that if you spin ‘em and look too long, your brain will fry. He tries to avert his eyes, but they land on something else just as unsettling. The deliberate attempt at cheer is everywhere: terraced houses painted in pink, yellow, and light green; roofs with white gingerbread trim; perfectly shaped shrubs; the glint of a blue sea beyond. A postcard of perfection, if you’re into that sort of thing. Clint isn’t; as far as he's concerned, excessive colours belong in the circus.  
  
Whatever this is, it sure isn’t East London, unless someone’s cleaned up the soot and slapped on some paint.  
  
Nor is it Guatemala, where he’d been busy trying to knock off some Cuban agitator or other on behalf of some guy who’d pretended never to have heard of the CIA, but spoke English and paid two-thirds up front in US dollars. Guy had been keen to keep up the relationship - as if Clint Barton would ever consider working for a Government agency. He’d taken his radio contact details out of professional courtesy and because, well, the other third of his fee, which by the looks of things he can kiss goodbye now.  
  
Unless the CIA itself is who’s behind this shit show?  
  
Should have listened to the Swordsman: don’t get mixed up in proxy wars, even on a strictly-for-cash basis. All you get for your trouble is the same bullshit games the Great Powers play with each other, but focused on _you_ like a sunbeam with a magnifying glass when things get inconvenient - and ‘pop’ goes the weasel.  
  
“This a fucking joke?” he mutters and, for the benefit of the overhead light or wherever the bugs are hidden, adds a heartfelt _fuck you_ in Russian, just in case. (He doesn’t bother with Spanish, because the Cubans don’t have the dough for this elaborate kind of game.) No, this is strictly Yanks versus Russkis - he’d bet a handful of Franklins on that -and somehow he’s ended up in the middle, the ham in the geopolitical sandwich.  
  
A quick search of the premises yields little but the fact that the layout is pretty much the same bedsit he’d left behind in London, except for a bubbling lava lamp, glowing orange despite the fact that the room is full of bright daylight. Not in a million years would Mrs McGillicuddy let one of those ‘new-fangled’ things into her house.  
  
He goes over to inspect the thing. It’s shiny and devoid of fingerprints. The roiling bubbles inside are oddly soothing, inviting him to watch the next one to detach itself and float to the top, and the next…  
  
_Fuck it._  
  
Clint shakes his head. Having his brain lulled, especially by unknown people who’ve messed around in his life already, is not in the cards. He resists the temptation to smash the lava lamp into the wall - who knows what stuff those bubbles are made of - and continues his exploration.  
  
The kitchenette is stocked with tinned food, all of the same obscure ‘village’ brand. The toilet, which he makes quick use of, is cleaner than he remembers. The taps produce clear water so he’s definitely not in Guatemala. Or in Hackney, for that matter. Germany, maybe?  
  
The cupboards seem to have a selection of his clothes in them, plus a few unfamiliar things. Whoever moved his stuff here clearly decided Clint’s wardrobe could use some updating, but at least they’ve stuck to his preferred colour scheme; pretty much everything is black. There are some jackets with white piped edges for unnecessary nattiness. A pink-and-white striped abomination of a blazer he shoves into the farthest reaches of the closet, lest it blind him.  
  
His bow is nowhere to be seen, of course. He doesn’t even bother looking for the _curare._ If he wants any weapons here, he suspects he will have to make them himself - or become one.  
  
The window opens easily so they’re not trying to keep him inside. Do they want him to go outside? Should he? The door opens by itself as he approaches.  
  
Okay, then. Outside, he’ll be able to see them coming. Whoever ‘they’ are.  
  
He grabs a jacket from the hanger by the door - a perfect fit, even in the shoulders - and emerges into a day that is as balmy as it looks. A gentle breeze carries the smell of the sea.  
  
Turns out his ‘apartment’ is actually a house, located about halfway up a hill amid a cluster of similar ones. He heads down the steps, towards what looks like a main road. There are no cars, just the occasional golf cart. A look back and he sees ‘his’ house in all its pastel-pink glory and two panels, with a ‘nine’ and the word ‘private’, respectively, affixed to a striped pole beside the door.  
  
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” says a woman in a red dress, who is clipping a rose bush alongside the downward path. She carefully deposits the clippings into a bag attached to her apron to keep the path pristine. Probably sweeps it with a feather duster three times a day too. Clint rewards her greeting with a silent frown, which she takes in cheerful stride.  
  
“Be seeing you!” she chirps after him, with a little wave of her fingers.  
  
The village square doesn’t do anything to relieve Clint’s feeling of being trapped on the set of an episode of _Leave it to Beaver,_ with a Ye Aulde Merrye twist. Some old guy doffs his hat at him; a couple of women smile as he passes them. All are carrying shopping baskets filled with the same type of cans he’d seen in the pantry.  
  
There are signposts everywhere, with little stripey hats on top, like they expect the local population to need constant clues for where to go and can’t allow the directions to get wet. _‘old people’s home’,_ one of them says; _‘village post office’,_ another. Maybe they ran out of capital letters?  
  
He makes a mental note to inspect the post office in the near future; maybe they have a telex service? A payphone? Stamps to stick on his forehead to mail himself home?  
  
Another woman crosses the plaza at the far end, bright and different, like a jarring note in the scenery meant to draw his attention. She is younger than anyone he’s seen so far and the colour of her hair is the brightest thing he’s seen here yet. She might as well be wearing a neon sign on her head shouting _‘Look at me!’_ and so he doesn’t.  
  
He turns away and is just about to enter one of the shops when a voice sounds out of nowhere.

_"Sir, the new subject, Number Nine - he woke up ahead of schedule. A fast metabolism, I assume."_  
  
_The delicate flower-adorned teacup is placed on top of a manila file. Two flexes the fingers of his right hand above a matte black control board and begins pushing buttons. The video screens come to life, image after image flicking past, displaying a virtual parade of tranquil village scenes. Each holds his attention for only a few seconds, until he has found what - or who - he is looking for._  
  
_“Thank you, Number Twenty-Seven. Number Two out.”_  
  
_He ends the call and returns the cordless yellow L-shaped phone to its cradle, next to its red and teal companions. Using both hands now he switches channels even faster, manipulating the board like a concert pianist._  
  
_The sequence of some standard black-and-white but mostly expensive full-color screens shows a blond man purposefully striding down a street, just about to enter the town square outside Two’s own offices._  
  
_Two moves to a different set of buttons, clears his throat, and smiles as the crackle of a radio transmission coming to life startles the man on the screen._  
  
_"Welcome to the village, Number Nine," he says amicably. The subject looks around in confusion before spotting the small red speaker mounted high on a striped barber pole. Nine squints up at it._  
  
_"Yes, I am talking to you. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."_  
  
_At the flick of yet another switch, the double doors of the building swing open as if by an invisible hand. Although he is all the way across the square, with its ornamental pond and decorative rose bushes, Number Two can tell the subject has caught the movement._  
  
_Enhanced peripheral vision. Interesting. Two leans over to make a brief note in the file with the discreet "9" on the tab._  
  
_"Why don't you come and join me for breakfast. The green dome - right across the square."_

So far the few strangers Natasha has passed haven’t shown hostility or, at the other end of the scale, paid her any special attention. Everyone has been perfectly bland and polite, the men tipping their hats and women smiling, and all mumbling variations of generic courteous greetings in variously accented English before quickly continuing on their way, discouraging conversation.  
  
Heading further in the vague direction of the town center, through yet another archway, she finds herself in a picturesque cobblestone square. To the left, waitresses in short black dresses and pristinely starched aprons wipe down the tables of a café in preparation for the day's business. For a brief moment Natasha considers taking a seat, but hesitates in face of the fact that she isn't carrying any money, not to mention being clueless as to which currency makes this strange place go 'round.  
  
On the opposite side of the square, the merry jingle of a bell rings out as the door to another squat little bungalow opens. A villager appears, rounds the barber pole helpfully identifying the place as the ‘general store’ and, whistling a repetitive melody to himself, strolls down a winding side road, without paying her any attention. The seductive scent of fresh bread makes Natasha's stomach rumble loudly; her feet move towards the olfactory temptation as if on their own accord.  
  
The bell rings out clearly once more as she crosses the threshold into the store. At first glance, the little business seems to carry everything the rural heart could desire. Fresh produce and flowers sit in woven baskets, and household items litter every surface. Every brand on sale is some unknown generic called 'village', which doesn’t help with identifying her location in the slightest.  
  
Out of habit, Natasha confirms that blunt butter knives are the sharpest on offer; more's the pity.  
  
The shopkeeper, a heavyset man of average height, salutes by sharply tipping his hand forward from his eye in a symbol like the American ‘okay’, as he says his goodbyes to the only other customer. The rosy-cheeked old biddy almost skewers Natasha with her leek as she leaves. "Be seeing you!" they echo each other.  
  
The ingrained reflex to take mental notes for a report to superiors she no longer holds allegiance to is like a physical sensation under Natasha's skin.  
  
"Good morning! What can I do for you?" the shopkeeper addresses her before she can dwell on the thought. As thoroughly as she searches the man's round face, there are no signs of sinister or secretive intentions.  
  
"Good morning," she returns with a blank smile. "I'd like a map of the area please."  
  
Beaming at being of service, the man smooths down his apron, straightening the large white badge on it that bears the same penny-farthing image as all the tins on the shelves. The number ‘19’ is prominent in the circle of the contraption's front wheel. Come to think of it, everybody she's seen has been wearing one of those badges, but she has been too focused on other details to pick up on the numbers. Could they reflect a hierarchy of sorts?  
  
"Certainly, ma'am. Would you like a black-and-white map or a coloured one?" he asks, strangely delighted to fulfil her request. His excessively sunny disposition triggers deep suspicions in her; this wouldn't be the first time she's seen a mind emptied of inconvenient thoughts by a third party.  
  
"Any local map will do, thank you."  
  
The map procured from underneath the counter carries no name, only the droll title _‘map of your village’._ Its cover leaf bears the image of that odd high-wheel bicycle at the top and lacks capital letters, the same as every other piece of writing she's seen so far. Uniformity down to the smallest detail. _How unsettling._  
  
Natasha mutters something that could, with some goodwill, be construed as a, _"Thank you,"_ and quickly unfolds the paper.  
  
The so-called map is a joke and may as well have been drafted in crayon. Not only does it lack any and all street names, the design is sprinkled with unhelpful descriptions of the surrounding topography like _‘the mountains’, ‘the sea’,_ and ‘the beach’. Additional highlights such as _‘shops’, ‘old people's home’,_ and _‘citizen's advice bureau’_ are no more illuminating.  
  
Eyebrow raised in silent query, Natasha searches the shopkeeper's face, but he returns her gaze with nothing but polite interest.  
  
"What clever whimsy," she deadpans. "I'll have the real map now, if you'd be so kind."  
  
The shopkeeper pushes back his straw hat to scratch at the curly mop of dark hair on his head.  
  
"Do you mean a bigger map? Those only come in colour, ma'am," he says with genuine confusion.  
  
"If that is the only other map you have, then yes, I'll have the coloured one," she replies evenly. A disconcerting hysteria is beginning to claw at Natasha's composure, faced with the man's mental vacuity. She forces herself to smile.  
  
Digging around in a cabinet towards the back of the shop takes the man a surprising amount of time. Roughly about the amount that, theoretically speaking, a hungry, recently abducted person with ingrained suspicions about man-made food could use to sneak an apple or two into her pockets.  
  
Eventually the shopkeeper returns with a second, larger map. Natasha unfolds it with trepidation.  


The plan is an exact replica of the first, only slightly larger in print and, as advertised, in colour.  
  
"That’s not what I had in mind," she tries, drumming her fingers on the counter with waning patience. "If you don't have a proper map of this place, can you at least give me a larger scale one of the surrounding area?"  
  
"We only have local maps," the man replies, as if this is the most obvious fact in the world. "There's no demand for any other.” He adds, with a sage nod, “You're new here, aren't you?"  
  
For a brief, frustrated moment Natasha entertains the fantasy of stabbing him with the striped spout of a nearby Cornishware teapot. She takes a deep, centering breath. If she loses her calm, she will never escape from here.  
  
Working with the crumbs of information she has been given, she considers the six roads leading from the village towards the mountains. They appear to continue further on off the edges of the map, suggesting that there is an outside world after all - somewhere.  
  
"What about cars?" she asks, careful not to appear too eager. "Is there someplace I can hire one?"  
  
"There's a taxi stand right here." The man, visibly glad that she's regained her briefly slipping composure, points to the upper left corner of the map, right next to something with the ominous name _‘palace of fun’._ "You can call one from any public phone and information point throughout the village."  
  
"I like to drive myself," she replies, mentally tucking away the information about public phones.  
  
"There are no self-drive cars, only taxis." The request seems to confuse him. "Don't worry about the fare - _everything_ is taken care of here in the village."  
  
The implication that _everything_ includes someone doing all of the thinking for individual villagers is obvious.  
  
Moreover, if there is one thing Natasha couldn't possibly be more sure of it's that absolutely nothing in life comes for free. There is always a price to be paid.  
  
"Refresh my memory," she says with a hollow smile. "Where exactly is this village?"  
  
The shopkeeper looks at her with great befuddlement. His open hands hover over the entirety of the map and slowly, like speaking to a child, he intones: "Why, it's right here, ma'am!"

_“Nine is on his way, Number Two. I assume you want me to keep watching Eight?”_  
  
_“Just make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble, Thirty-Nine. And take note of any patterns you can spot in her actions. As you can see, she is already gathering information on her surroundings. Red Room training is very methodical; it would be useful to see whether she continues to adhere to it.”_  
  
_Number Two rises from his observation chair and straightens his jacket._  
  
_“Now let us go meet our Western wild card.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Upon hearing the disembodied voice, Clint’s immediate instinct is to locate the source. It seems to come from the nearest barber pole; there’s a glint atop the pole that can only be a camera lens. Judging by the number of the poles, surveillance looks to be pretty complete.

As for the invite, he’s not sure that he has a choice, but if it leads him to someone he can choke information out of, so much the better. He heads for the green dome as directed. For now, it's probably wise to bide his time, watch and learn.

If the village itself is _‘Leave it to Beaver’,_ the dome interior is strictly _‘The Jetsons’._ The room is dominated by an enormous ball chair, currently with its back turned to him. The kind of over-designed thing built strictly to impress, not to actually enjoy.

The colour scheme of the place is a change from pastel and stripes, although not exactly for the better. The world of design cannot move on from red, orange, and yellow fast enough as far as Clint is concerned, although the purple walls he can live with. In the far corner is an opening towards another room and he can see a slightly flickering light emanating from it. A television? Subtle disruptions in the light pattern suggest that a handy goon squad is lurking in the shadows to discourage exploration.

“Come in, Number Nine,” a voice says from inside the plastic ball. The thing swivels and discloses the speaker: a Mediterranean-looking male in an expensive suit with a tobacco pipe. His accent is one of those expensive British ones that come with a country house and a degree from Cambridge. “Can we offer you some breakfast?”

Clint is tempted to tell the guy to fuck off, or better yet, to see if that black ball chair will bounce, but he reminds himself: _intel!_ Plus, he’s actually hungry and so he just shrugs a _‘why not?’_

A very small guy in a tux wheels in a cart with two trays, each containing a plate with a domed cover, a cup, serviette, and a complete set of cutlery. He stops the cart in front of the ball chair and pulls up another chair, making an inviting gesture in Clint’s direction. Clint shrugs and slouches down in the proffered chair. 

The last time Clint had spent time in jail all he’d gotten to eat with was a plastic spork, so having access to a metal blade and pointy tines is a bonus. He mentally makes a note to check ‘his’ kitchen for its potential as an arsenal.

“What can we get you?” his host asks politely.

Well, given that whatever they plan to serve him is already there in front of him, Clint decides to piss them off and go full American.

“Two eggs over easy, bacon, and some pancakes with syrup,” he says. “White toast, buttered while still hot. Not turned into cardboard, like you Brits do it. Strong black coffee. Also, an explanation.”

He doesn’t really expect the latter, but there are principles to be observed. He pointedly doesn’t say ‘please’.

Tux lifts the dome from Clint’s plate and… Fuck, that has to be a coincidence. Two eggs over easy, bacon, two pieces of toast glistening with butter, and a small stack of pancakes with syrup dripping over the sides. Piping hot, the lot. Has someone tapped into his brain? He stares at the coffee with narrowed eyes.

“On second thought, you have sugar?” 

He hates sugar, but again, there’s a point to be made.

“Have some of mine,” his host says, his smile never wavering as the little butler lifts the dome off his own - strictly continental - breakfast. “I am Number Two, by the way. You may call me Two.”

Clint swallows his resentment with half a pancake and _fuck table manners._

“So whaddya want, Two?” he snarls around another mouthful of pancake. It’s perfect, natch.  
“And how did I get to be one of your numbers?” 

“Ah yes,” Number Two says. “You do like to get to the point. Allow me to do the same, then.”

He picks up a quarter of toast and delicately dabs it with jam.

“Since your discharge from the military you have been active, amongst other places, in Laos, the Congo, Chile, El Salvador and, most lately, Guatemala. A most impressive list - almost as impressive as the array of bodies you left in your wake.”

Clint says nothing. He finishes chewing and washes down the pancake with coffee, careful not to show his disgust at the cloying sweetness, and waits for the other shoe to drop. The fact that someone has been able to trace his activities is concerning, but surely the gambit will lead to something else.

“So, here is what we would like to know, Number Nine.” The man drawls out the designation with obvious pleasure and, of course, no explanation. “Which master do you serve? Surely your activities have not been - how do I put this - entirely random?”

Clint allows his fork to hover over the plate before spearing a particularly juicy-looking strip of bacon. Could it be that people as obviously obsessed with planning as those who built this Village of the Damned, label their own food cans, and create the perfect breakfast in advance, have not quite internalised the concept of _freelancing?_ But at least now he knows his bargaining chip.

“You brought me here for _that?”_ he asks, sticking the bacon in his mouth. It’s just the right amount of crunchy and chewy, and Clint gives a thumbs up to the butler, who ignores him. “You seriously mean to tell me you’ve been following me around the planet, watched me carry out assignments, and still don’t know who I’ve been working for at any given time? Fancy that.”

He wolfs down one of the eggs - who knows when he’ll get to eat next - and shakes his head in sympathy.

“Tell you what. You tell me what the fuck this place is and how I can get out of here, and I’ll think about spilling my secrets. Deal?”

Two gives him one those condescending smiles that Clint would happily spend a few hours wiping off his face with his fist.

“I’m afraid neither of those things are on the table, Number Nine. But we are certain that eventually you will agree that cooperation is your best option. We will get what we want. We always do. And if we like the answer, certain mutually beneficial arrangements might become possible.” 

_Cooperation. Arrangements._ Why is it these übervillain types always sound like bureaucrats, when you can practically hear the clinking of thumbscrews in their pockets? Well, Clint doesn’t feel particularly cooperative. He suspects he will find out sooner rather than later what consequences that may bring. 

For now, he settles on a polite, but firm, “Well in that case, fuck you.”

Clint grabs the two slices of toast he’d been allocated and stuffs them in his jacket pocket; if life has taught him anything, it’s that there’s no sense wasting food. 

He gets up and, before Two can crawl out of that ball chair, strides over to the far end of the room where he’d seen the flickering light, past a couple of lava lamps and an oddly-shaped bicycle. What is it with these people and lava lamps? Does being manipulative, domineering jerks require a certain amount of zen? He carefully avoids looking at the things too closely.

Three more steps and he finds himself in front of a bank of monitors, ignoring the sharp, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!” from Mister Numbers.

A quick scan of the screens tells him what he needed to know: the entire village is under surveillance, including the house he’d woken up in - the stripy pole with the number 9 on it is clearly visible, as is the house beside it. He has no doubt that a push of a few buttons would call up select interior shots. There’s the square, the row of shops, the beach… 

Sudden steps come up from behind, then two pairs of strong arms grip his own and yank him around, away from the monitors. He finds himself getting pulled roughly across the linoleum, past an evidently scandalised butler and the unfinished breakfast arrangement, towards the entrance he’d come in through. Clint doesn’t resist, just lets his weight drag to make the goons work for it.

One last shove and he is outside, the door slamming shut behind him. So there is an end to his hosts’ patience and a willingness to get physical. Good to know. He straightens out his jacket, turns back towards the door, and looks straight at the camera affixed over the top. Now that he knows, he can see them everywhere. 

He stalks off, middle finger held high in the air.

_“How typically American. Uncouth, unruly, ill-mannered, and entirely too full of himself.”_

__

_Thirty-Nine’s voice is dripping with distaste. Number Two looks at him with mild interest._

_“Indeed. But those can be quite useful qualities in certain contexts. Particularly when paired with someone more… methodical. It is why they are both here. Shall we see how our other subject is doing?”_

_He swings his chair around and punches a series of buttons._

_“Ah, yes. There she is. Still gathering information, as I expected.”_

"Number Eight, how lovely to finally meet you."

A man approaches Natasha, just as she has sat down in a white folding chair overlooking the sea. 

She assesses him instinctively: forties; posh British accent and clear olive skin; sharply creased cream-coloured trousers; yachting shoes; black hair cut short, the beginning of curls reigned in with brillantine. The striped scarf loosely draped over his navy sports jacket implies a sense of fashion and self-importance. If this is one of her mystery kidnappers he appears graced with both narcissism and ego, and the salary to afford both. She can work with that. 

With an amicable smile Natasha turns, widening her eyes that little bit more to let him know just how impressed she is. 

"You seem to have the advantage, I don't think I've had the pleasure." She lays it on thick, watching a gratified smile crease his face. 

"Allow me to treat you to a spot of breakfast," he oozes in return, flashing a set of perfect teeth as he pulls up a chair. On cue, a short, balding man makes his way over to them, struggling with a tea trolley almost the same height as himself, his black coattails flapping in the breeze. 

"And who exactly are you?" Natasha inquires, while the small man huffs and puffs in his tux. He unfolds a small picnic table, covers it with a perfectly crisp white table cloth, and sets a silver-domed tray in front of her.

"Number Two," her opposite replies with a disarming smile, accepting a flowered tea cup from the butler.

"That’s not a name, it's a rank." 

It's obvious to her how much this man is enjoying himself and she wonders how often he's been through this spiel before, probably inviting people to ask if he is Number Two, then who is Number One? Fine, she will do him the favour. 

"And who do you work for?"

Number Two smirks as if she's made a particularly clever joke, leans in conspiratorially, and replies: "That would be telling, Number Eight."

"I am not a number," she replies just as sweetly, "I am a free, if currently geographically challenged, woman."

Two laughs in faux delight but watches her expression closely as he nods for the butler to remove the dome from her plate. 

Natasha is prepared for everything from chocolate gâteau to a head on a platter, but what she finds instead is a deliciously smelling Russian breakfast, the kind found only in the uppermost echelons of the socialist elite these days. At the scent of warm, sweetened porridge her stomach gives a traitorous rumble. 

If they meant to poison her there would have been ample opportunity while she was unconscious and the apples she'd pinched earlier had only served to emphasise her hunger. Whatever the future holds for her, she will need her strength, so Natasha takes a slice of wonderfully solid black bread and sausage. The strong, sweet flavour of rye and molasses feels like an edible hug and it takes some concentration to mask her reaction. 

"Just how you like it, isn't that right?" Two says smugly. He reaches over to the silver teapot and pours her a cup, using a toothpick to place a slice of lemon on the steaming surface where it bobs like a little sailboat.

Clearly, he knows he is right; Natasha sees no point in arguing.

"Where am I?"

"You are in The Village." 

It's funny, she can all but hear the capitals in his words, even though the place seems otherwise deliberately devoid of them. Clearly the construct is one of importance to whichever organisation has created it.

"And what is the purpose of this village? Forcing people to go on holiday and making them their favourite breakfast? A very costly concept for a spa, especially since you don’t seem to charge." 

She makes no effort to hide her pleasure in the tastes and textures of the food. As potential last meals go it could be worse and it’s been a while since she’s had decent cherry preserve with her oladyi. But perhaps her attempts at flattery are a little too transparent; his next words show no inclination to spill information in response.

"You do not strike me as the type of woman who spends inordinate amounts of time in spas, Number Eight, I'll give you that. In fact, wherever you turn up peace and quiet is usually the first thing to go, isn't it? That was quite a mess you left behind in Vladivostok."

When she doesn't reply, Two leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He radiates the kind of cruel curiosity that reminds her of someone idly prying into open wounds. 

"So many casualties..." He tut-tuts, searching her face for a reaction. "That's the problem with going it alone, isn't it, Eight? No backup. Nobody to check your intel or have your back. Don’t you sometimes wish you were still part of something bigger?" 

It's too easy to see where this is going. She has heard his type of pitch countless times before: the _‘I'll scratch your back if you first scratch something else of mine’_ approach. Former employers, marks, random predators... Funny that despite apparently knowing so much about her Two would still go for an approach as stale as this. It confirms her previous assessment of his weak spot: his ego. 

It's laughably easy to stare at her plate long enough to make her eyes water, easier yet to start blinking rapidly and draw her lips into a tightly pinched _‘you got me’_ expression. 

Number Two looks pleased with himself. 

"I can help you," he offers, true to the script. "Tell us why you left the _‘Red Room’."_

So that's what they’re after. Natasha allows herself a small smile Two may as well misconstrue as gratitude and stabs her fork into a blini.

Clint’s recce of the village hasn’t yielded anything particularly useful, apart from giving his legs a bit of a workout and convincing him that the whole place must have been designed by a squadron of clowns on valium: garish, yes, but painfully predictable. And desperately unfunny.

It’s not just the décor, but also the people wandering around the place, each as vacuous as the next. There are surprisingly many of them and, apart from the ones running the shops or keeping the cameras clean, they all look like they’ve just stepped out of the pages of British Vogue. Straw hats, pillbox hats, berets, dresses, capes, and jackets in all colours of the rainbow, and some of them the whole rainbow at once. 

There appears to be a strict grooming code in place too, with not a single unkempt person or scruffy jaw in sight. He subconsciously touches his jaw; smooth as a baby’s butt, although he can’t recall shaving lately.

“Fine mornin’, Number Nine!” The third or fourth man in a striped blazer and white trousers doffs his straw hat at Clint, who has given up being pissed off that seemingly everyone has his number. “Nice one for a walk, isn’t it? Be seeing you!”

He has never been in a place so relentlessly placid and cheerful, so utterly devoid of sharp words or edges. It’s starting to affect his brain, which he suspects is probably the point. 

As it turns out, he’s not the only one.

All of a sudden there’s a commotion in the square near the fountain, where a dozen or so village denizens are serenely engaged in whatever it is they’re doing. Being props? Standing around completing the picture of the perfect society, like in a pavilion at the World Fair? 

Detaching himself from the tableau, a man screams and starts running, disrupting the peaceful scene with both discordant sounds and movement. Clint can’t hear what he’s shouting, but it’s not much of a stretch to assume that it amounts to a desperate version of _‘Let me out of here!’_

The man heads towards the fountain, swatting at imaginary flies and scattering villagers before him as he goes. Clint is considering whether he should step in - although he is not entirely clear who he should be helping in this scenario, the screamer or the terrified village folk - when the now-familiar voice crackles to life from the ubiquitous speakers.

It barks a sharp command: _“Hold!”_

Within a single heartbeat the square turns into a _tableau vivant,_ like the ones Carson’s Carnival of Travelling Wonders used to have until punks started to throw bananas at the performers to see if they’d flinch. Every living soul except the running man freezes in place, eyes wide with panic, as a strange hum fills the air. Clint presses himself into an alcove by one of the shops, keen to see what will happen but not wanting to stand out.

And then, as if this day hasn't been strange enough, popping seemingly out of thin air a giant white ball bounds across the square. Alternately hovering and bouncing as it goes, it heads straight for the man creating the disturbance. A few stifled gasps emanate from the captive audience which strikes Clint as odd, because, seriously, where’s the terror in a giant chewing gum bubble?

The thing keeps bouncing towards the shouting man who, ever more frantic, is seeking refuge in the center of the fountain now. The white ball bounces one more time and the last impression Clint has of the man before he is obscured by the ball is of someone cowering in abject fear, face contorted into a grimace, and hands raised as if to ward off an unspeakable evil.

Clint would probably be much better off letting things take their course, but he’s never been one to let good judgment cloud his penchant for action. You gotta do what you gotta do, and the sight of a giant chewing gum bubble terrorizing the only person in this joint capable of emotion isn't something Clint is prepared to ignore.

In the absence of his preferred weapon he scouts around for an alternative and, seeing none, takes a few steps out of his hiding place to kick in the window of the shop next door. The sound of shattering glass should have turned a few heads, but the village folk continue to stand stock-still.

Clint picks up a large piece of glass, carefully so as not to damage himself, takes a brief moment to balance it, and with a flick of the wrist hurls it towards the ball like a throwing star. The sun briefly strikes it as it spins, spraying a momentary rainbow into the square. The shard strikes the ball, still spinning, and by all rights it should carve a foot-long slice into the side of the thing.

_Nothing happens._

The glass doesn’t slice, it doesn’t bounce, and it doesn’t drop. Instead, it… vanishes, almost as if it’d been absorbed into the white thing, without making it change its course by an inch or leaving so much as a mark.

The screams stop as suddenly as they’d started. Silence descends on the square as if all sound has suddenly been sucked out of existence - all but that ominous hum. As for the ball, it bounces off serenely whence it came, pristinely white and round as before, until it disappears from sight. 

The unfortunate man is nowhere to be seen, leaving no body or any evidence of a struggle. It’s all disturbingly… _tidy._

The voice on the speaker returns, far less urgent now - possibly even a little reassuring - as it commands its flock to, “Resume!” The people in the square heave a collective sigh of relief and go back to doing what they were before this unexpected spot of unpleasantness. To all intents and purposes seeming to have forgotten about it already.

_What the ever-loving fuck?_

Clint spends the next few minutes pressed into his alcove, trying to process what he has just seen and failing miserably. The only thing he knows for certain is that while this place is all sunshine and light on the outside it sure as hell is not lacking in dark corners.

He heads off in the opposite direction from the ball, gingerly stepping over broken glass as he goes. He has just started whistling an innocent tune when his eyes cross those of the red-haired woman he’d noticed before. Unlike those of the other inhabitants of this increasingly bewildering place, her eyes are clear, meeting his own without hesitation, and Clint knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that she knows exactly what he had just tried and failed to accomplish.

_“He tried to destroy the Rover!”_

_Twenty-seven’s voice conveys a mixture of indignation and amusement._

_“An easy mistake to make,” Number Two says indulgently. “But tell me, Twenty-seven. What does that little incident tell you about our candidate?”_

_Twenty-seven hesitates a fraction of a second, as if considering an exam question in which the wrong answer could have disastrous consequences._

_“He is impulsive, thinks on his feet, and is inventive when it comes to fashioning weapons.”_

_“Yes, but you missed the obvious, Twenty-seven.”_

_Twenty-seven clears his throat nervously._

_“Of course. He is very accurate when it comes to handling projectile weapons, even improvised ones. But we knew that already, didn’t we?”_

_Two does not dignify the spark of defiance with an answer._

_“Hero complex, Number Twenty-seven. He likes to save people. This may yet become his downfall.”_


	3. Chapter 3

"Dear citizens, the time is ten forty-five. Curfew time, sleep time. Fifteen minutes from now to curfew. Until then, allow us to tuck you in with a soothing lullaby,” an overjoyed woman announces on the radio, before cutting to a tragically slow piece of music. Clint vaguely recognizes it as something classical they used to play in the circus, whenever one of the clowns was pretending to die.

He makes a point of leaving the house.

Outside, out of the corner of his eye, with peripheral vision that can be a curse or a blessing, he spots the red-headed woman he’d seen in the square. 

With an air of indifference she walks up the gravel path to the front door next to his own; Number Eight that would make her, if the house is hers. She hesitates as the magical door swings inwards, throwing him a look - or rather, _a look_ \- over her shoulder. Even in the half-gloom of night, the intensity of her green eyes does something odd to his gut. It's undeniable: up close, she is drop-dead gorgeous. Hourglass figure, translucent skin, luscious lips, a jawline that begs to be stroked even as it oozes character... 

He mentally slaps himself. _On your guard, Barton, and check those hormones. She’s just another piece of the puzzle, like those prop-like people and the striped barber poles._

Instead of disappearing inside though she takes a seat at the table outside her door and uses the tip of her shoe to casually push the second chair out in silent invitation. 

_Damn._ Normally, Clint wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But in this joint? He raises an eyebrow to signal he’s seen the invite, but otherwise doesn’t make a move, waiting for her next play instead. She obliges soon enough.

"You don't happen to have a cigarette, do you? Apparently, even with all the effort they put into this village, they didn’t include a single pack of smokes." Her voice projects only amused indifference as her fingers trace the mosaic patterns on the table top, but he can tell she's watching his reaction closely.

“I hear smoking’s bad for you,” he replies, focusing on the obvious first as there’s a fair bit to unpack underneath her line.

"Propaganda," she says with a shrug. Something about the way she rolls the ‘r’ doesn't sound at all American to him. "Besides, nobody lives forever. Don't you like living a little dangerously from time to time?"

Clint isn’t overly fond of verbal ping pong; he knows how to play with the best of them, but tends to be more comfortable with weapons he can touch. But, sure, he’ll play along. Nothing else to do, anyway.

“I do, but hacking up a lung at age sixty isn’t my jam,” he says. “Nor, for that matter, is getting squished by a Wrigley’s bubble, which is probably what happens when you do anything exciting around here. Which includes smoking, I suspect.”

If he wasn't watching her as closely as she is him, he would have missed the quick narrowing of her eyes. Before he has time to dwell on what it may mean, she's already smiling again pleasantly.

"I did wonder what that ball may be," she says lightly, as if commenting on the weather. "Care to enlighten me? You seemed to be both closer than I was, and somewhat..." She hesitates briefly before settling on, "Keen to engage with it."

As pretty as those fluttering lashes are, Clint doesn't miss that she isn't wasting so much as a thought on the poor guy who got squished by the thing. Cold-blooded, this dame. Well, fuck it. She’s probably his designated cellmate, placed here to ply him for information. But she’s easier on the eyes than anyone else he’s seen here so far - or any of his cellmates in previous instances, for that matter - and there’s no one else to talk to. 

Clint turns the proffered chair around and straddles it. He is careful to keep his face away from the camera that’s pointing at the two houses, judging by the screen he’d seen in the Green Dome. 

“Don’t like gum,” he says, “especially when it evolves and thinks it can just go and absorb people, instead of _them_ chewing on _it._ So, what do you want?”

Her raised eyebrow makes it clear she thinks he's full of shit, yet what she says is: "What does any woman want? Shoes, a kitten, _love..."_ The way she emphasises the last one makes it seem like the most ridiculous notion of the three. 

She shifts to curl her leg under her, getting comfortable, and maybe he is imagining things, but it looks like that movement very elegantly placed him between her and the nearest camera. 

When she speaks again, her voice is pitched lower and she looks him straight in the eye: "Or maybe a stiff drink, a pair of Makarovs, and an express ticket out of here."

He stops short of catching his breath. _Makarovs, eh?_ That would explain that delicately rolled ‘r’ then. And escape? How do you spell e-n-t-r-a-p-m-e-n-t? She’s either very good or very bad at this. 

He decides to play for time. 

“Love is for children,” he says. “Of which there aren’t any here, have you noticed?”

"I generally consider that a plus; limits the chance for collateral damage,” she retorts and he marvels how it's possible that, without any change in expression that he can pinpoint, her continuing smile is suddenly as cold as the Siberian tundra. 

She evidently expects him to say something. Obviously, she's got experience in extracting information and the patience to go with it. He tilts the chair forward to balance on two legs, and leaves it - and her - dangling for a good minute.

Fuck it. Whatever and whoever she may be, she just put a new marker on the board and it’s his to pick up. _Traptraptrap!_ his mind insists, but if Clint was good at making life choices he probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. 

“I prefer Brownings,” he finally offers. “Otherwise, I’m with you." And to make sure she knows this is all she's getting from him for now, he adds, "Also, I like your hair. It’s an unusual colour, even for this place.”

She tilts her head: _message received._

The small smile that plays around her lips now appears genuine, if only for how quickly she reins it in. Her reply is a softball, designed to be hit out of the park: "Almost as unusual as a man who wears all black around here." 

“That’s because I fucking hate stripes.”

Her deep, throaty laugh comes as a surprise - by all appearances to her as much as to him - but before he can do anything with that information, a cheery voice blares from the nearest speaker pole: "Curfew time is one minute. One minute to curfew."

Clint shakes his head at the absurdity of this place, while his new acquaintance uncurls her leg and rises gracefully. In full view of the camera, she smiles down at him with her earlier warmth. 

“It was lovely to meet you, Number Nine. Be seeing you." She gives him the strange village salute, leaving him wondering whether she's part of it all or has smoothly picked it up along the way to keep the watchers off her scent.

"And now, it's here," says the speaker. "Curfew time, chiming you out. Good night and sweet dreams!" 

Bells begin to count out the hour, giving her exit a surreal, but oddly appropriate, gravitas.

The following morning Natasha wakes from hazy dreams of white spheres, a sensation of running, and inquisitive blue eyes.

Sadly, yesterday’s elaborate breakfast is not an everyday occurrence. Her kitchen is stocked with only moderate supplies and non-perishables at that. Just like in the socialist paradise of her youth, the tables of those in charge of this place appear to be suspiciously fuller than those of the plebs. The entire egalitarian set-up is as fake as the handsome rebel that just so happens to live next door. 

It was curiosity, plain and simple, that made her offer him the giveaway of the 'Makarov' reference. As her captor had pointed out, she is not normally one to offer partnership, even in jest, and especially not to inherently suspect strangers. However, if messing with their expectations comes with the added bonus of finding out a little more about her neighbor with the impressive throwing arm, well... 

In the end, it won’t matter. Natasha doesn't plan on sticking around long enough to see what the long game may be here or what part he might be playing in it. Ever since she turned her back on the Motherland she has had nobody to report to and she's seen more than enough of this place to satisfy any curiosity of her own. 

It’s time to leave.

On yesterday's walk around the perimeter, she'd found that all roads leading towards the mountains are straight and without cover, making anyone attempting to escape an easy target. Natasha has no intention of making closer acquaintance with the unnatural bubble she had seen in the square. 

She dresses in the distinctly indistinctive clothes she finds in the bedroom closet, wearing a swimsuit underneath. A simple turtleneck jumper goes over capris and, since the mirror no doubt contains another spying eye, she takes great care to attach the penny-farthing badge with the number Eight assigned to her to her chest. It takes hardly any time to brush out her hair, expertly draw swallowtails of black liner along her eyes, and pack a beach bag. Steering clear of the many cameras, she surreptitiously adds her own seasonal must-have: a moderately sharp breakfast knife, with a tragically rounded tip.

The balmy weather provides a perfect excuse to head for the seaside and she wastes no time getting there, taking the most direct route indicated by the otherwise useless village map. Although there are other villagers enjoying the beach, nobody bothers her as she sets her towel and bag down on the sand and slips off her clothes, nor as she walks towards the shoreline in her swimsuit.

Despite slightly friendlier temperatures than those of the icy Siberian lakes she'd been forced to train in, the sea still slaps her face like a palmful of needles when she throws herself into the spray.

Natasha forces herself to breathe evenly and deeply and clears her mind to fully focus on the rhythmic motion of strong strokes. Not far ahead is a buoy that reminds even experienced swimmers to return to shore. Once she passes that, surely it will only be a matter of minutes before somebody is alerted to what she is doing - provided they haven't caught on already. 

Eyes are everywhere, including, she suspects, on the buoy.

If what she observed on yesterday’s recon stroll through the village is correct, there should be an eddy about another minute beyond the bright orange buoy. If she's judged it right, it indicates the end of calm waters at the end of the bay. Furthermore, if she analyzed its direction properly, the current should take her away from the beach and beyond the mountainous perimeter. 

If none of these ‘ifs’ work out...

Well. Then she is probably about to drown.

_"Soon she'll be out of range."_

_"She's not wasting any time in becoming a nuisance, is she?" Number Two's tone conveys slight exasperation at the inconvenience._

_"Orange alert."_

Natasha grimaces at the spreading coldness in her hands and feet. Far to the right, another buoy has appeared on the horizon.

Despite her best efforts, she has begun to shiver and she starts flexing her fingers and toes against the cold. In only a few short strokes she should reach the current, allowing her to conserve her strength for a while while the rushing water carries her further down the outer coastline. 

Saltwater is making her face feel itchy and tight, and she finds herself blinking harder as she searches for signs of pursuit. Has she drifted off course? Looking back at it, the white buoy in the distance suddenly appears much closer. Natasha feels an entirely different type of chill run down her spine. The ‘buoy’ must be the sphere from the square. 

It's moving against the current. 

And it's approaching fast.

Natasha curses, doubling her number of strokes, and finally reaches the anticipated current. The sudden acceleration catches her with an unfortunately cresting wave; she breathes in water. She coughs, fighting to keep up the pace at the same time. Her eyes stream as every indrawn breath brings in more biting, salty droplets. 

More of her hair sticks to her face and impairs her view. When she manages to get her head above the rushing water, a second white sphere has appeared in the opposite direction.

Hovering patiently while the current carries her towards it.

Behind her, the first one has picked up speed. It's bouncing off the water's surface in complete defiance of the laws of aerodynamics. 

Desperate, Natasha switches to backstroke and grabs the puny breakfast knife with fumbling fingers from where it has sat hidden, taped to the underside of her breasts.

She gets a good look at the gigantic white balloon as it comes closer. The buffeting wind does not deter the thing in the slightest and it's painfully clear that it is heading right for her. 

Natasha summons every minute of her training, every serum and substance ever injected into her, every command to do better, be more, be stronger. But it's no use. Before she can even think to evade it, the first ball is on top of her, pushing her under water. 

Hysterical laughter escapes her in a multitude of tiny bubbles. After all the nightmares the KGB put her through, her end is going to come via a party balloon with delusions of grandeur. 

Briefly, she breaks through to the surface, gasping in a lungful of air and sea spray.  
The knife glances harmlessly off the rubbery material mercilessly pushing her back under. Once, twice she tries in vain to pierce it from below, the water's natural resistance sapping her strength. 

In a last ditch effort, Natasha dives down and out of the way. Her lungs are burning as badly as her muscles while dissolving make-up mixes in with the salty water, stinging her eyes. The biting cold in her limbs is giving way to the dangerous fake sensation of heat as hypothermia takes hold of her extremities. 

Driven by pure, instinctive self-preservation, she comes up for air a short distance away. 

The last thing she sees is the other ball's bright whiteness filling her field of vision. It pushes her underwater, its elastic surface covering her face and stealing the last of her breath until consciousness escapes her.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint’s exploration has taken him in increasingly large circles and he is surprised at how little time it has taken for that to lead to the beach. Open water: the obvious way out of the village.

Not only that, though. At the edge of the sand, just south of the building marked _‘old people’s home’,_ is a landing pad.

A helicopter landing pad.

_With a helicopter on it._

Black, smallish - not a transport or attack chopper like he’d flown in the military, more like the kind seen in civilian ops. It’s not a type he’s familiar with, but they’re fundamentally all the same: up, down, forward, hover, and don’t forget the blades can kill.

The thing might as well scream, _“Fly me!”_ at Clint in a loud, blustery voice. Too easy? Probably, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

He scans the beach and the buildings behind him for observers or other signs that he is being watched. No obvious cameras out here in the open, which is… good? Or just an indication that he’s missing something?

It’s when his eyes move over the water that he sees her: the woman from last night, Number Eight, way out in the ocean. He watches the red beacon that is her hair bobbing in the waves, the flash of white hands, making strong and steady strokes away from the beach. Away from the village. Making a run for it, by all appearances.

Had she been serious about escaping or is she putting on a show for his benefit? In this place of fucking smoke and mirrors, who’s to say or know?

As plans go it’s pretty reckless, which wasn't a trait he'd have associated with her based on their little chat. She didn't seem like somebody who takes risks without careful consideration.

While he’s still contemplating what that might mean, he spots the Wrigley-ball thing on the horizon. Clint freezes in place as his eyes flit back and forth between the woman and the ball of white; nothing about her course indicates that she's seen it.

A second sphere pops up from the opposite direction. Together those two improbable, ridiculous yet dangerous blobs converge on the swimmer, with the first one in the lead. There is commotion in the water when they arrive - violent splashing as the first bubble presses down. 

And _down._

If this is a ploy designed to make him trust the woman, getting her killed is a funny way of going about it, whether it’s her own idea or someone else’s. And all that is assuming of course that they, or she, knew he was coming here to begin with. She must have started swimming long before he got to the beach, given how far she’s gotten. 

Clint is beginning to suspect that this is not about him at all. It’s about _her._

Not fake. Real.

_Shit._

One of the bubbles resurfaces again. Eight’s body is plastered underneath, stuck to the thing like a bug to flypaper. Maybe it's a bit late to revisit his opinion of her as a honey trap? Too bad, she had been interesting, a challenging conversation partner, and the only one in this godforsaken place that Clint hasn’t felt compelled to run away from or choke the life out of with his bare hands.

Out of something that Clint tells himself is curiosity - although in truth it feels more like a sense of duty, like holding a vigil for an acquaintance - he stays on the beach, watching as the two lethal bubbles transport her body towards the shore, landing a few hundred yards from where he is standing rooted, and dropping their lifeless cargo in the sand.

Something makes a fist in his gut. Raw anger that this madhouse of clownish colour schemes and chirpy extras could have so amplified his inherent sense of suspicion - or worse, dulled his desire for action - and so fast, that he’d stand by and watch while the one person who’d talked to him like an actual human being gets drowned and dragged to her death. . 

He’d seen her as careful, deliberate, testing, probing, but then she’d been _up and actually doing,_ while Clinton Fucking Barton is still standing on a beach, indulging his resentments and shouting useless obscenities at the sea. 

Two men approach with a stretcher, calling ahead at the hapless beachgoers to make way. Looking around, looking back, Clint can make out the silhouette of the helicopter, still sitting there, all by itself. 

With a last glance at the lifeless body hitting the sand he silently thanks her for the distraction, vowing to honour her memory by seizing the moment she has given him. He saunters, just fast enough not to arouse suspicion, in the direction of the chopper. 

There’s a single attendant beside the machine, watching the scene at the beach in slack-jawed fascination. Clint nods and smiles a polite greeting, steps up beside him, and grabs the guy by the neck. A twist, a turn, a sickening crunch, and the man falls to the ground like a marionette whose strings have been cut. 

Clint steps over the body and climbs into the chopper. A quick survey of the instruments, fingers dancing over the array of buttons and levers to activate muscle memory, and _yes._ He can do this. A few seconds later, the machine lifts off.

The chopper gains altitude quickly, the beach and white bubbles receding as Clint swings it out first over the sea then banks to head for the mountains.

“Take that, you fuckers,” he mutters under the rotors' deafening roar and, louder, “I’m sorry,” at the lifeless body he left behind on the tarmac. Dude was just doing his job, even if he had awful taste in employers.

He can feel the adrenaline streaming into his blood now, a heady sense of freedom and the cracking of invisible shackles, as the chopper’s blades cut the wind and carry him forward.

The feeling lasts exactly fifty-six seconds.

Without any morning, not even a sound, the instrument board goes dead. Pitch controls, anti-torque pedals, tail rotor control - all gone. He might as well be stirring a cup of tea for all the effect his efforts have on the chopper’s movements. For a brief moment, the sheer animal terror of finding himself in an unresponsive cage at this altitude constricts his chest, but the chopper turns, almost lazily, as if it were mocking him, and heads back to the shore on its own. Not even Clint Barton is stupid enough to jump out of a moving helicopter, but a perfunctory check confirms that the doors have been locked anyway.

The chopper touches down like a feather; at least whoever is operating the fucking thing knows what they’re doing. Weaponless and trapped, with a dead console that refuses to switch back on, Clint figures he might as well get out into the open if he can. At least there, he can put up a fight. Sure enough, the doors open again.

A smiling figure greets him on the tarmac with a jaunty nod. There are no retributive whips or shackles in evidence.

“Had a little adventure, did we, Number Nine?” Thirty-three, according to his badge, says kindly. 

“Fuck you,” Clint replies, equally politely. 

The body of the attendant is nowhere to be seen, just as the ambulance carrying Number Eight has disappeared. If nothing else, whoever is running this circus is most efficient at cleaning up after the animals.

“I’ll be going back to my little prison then, I guess?” Clint says.

“You do that, Number Nine. Be seeing you.” Thirty-three nods with an approving smile.

_“Two attempts in one day. That is a record, is it not?”_

_“It is. We can expect a new Number Two tonight, I’m told. Nice flying, by the way.”_

_“Thank you, Twelve. I have been practicing, ever since we learned that Nine had experience as a pilot. It took him less time than expected to try and make a go of it, though; presumably he was spurred on by the woman’s attempt.”_

_Twelve swivels his chair around to look at the bank of screens and taps a button._

_“I trust that Number Eight has been adequately seen to?” he asks into the microphone._

_“Reanimation is in progress, Sir,” a voice announces over the intercom._

_“Excellent. I want her back in her environment as soon as possible. I’m curious to see Nine's reaction when he finds out that she survived.”_

Warmth embraces Natasha as she regains consciousness. She's in bed, back at her mock home, with the thick European duvet tucked in around her. But for the lactic acid in her muscles from the strenuous swim, she might have dreamt the entire attempted escape.

Somebody has not only undressed her and put her in pyjamas while she was out, they also must have washed the salt from her skin and hair and brushed out her tangled curls. A plaster adheres to the side of her hand where, in her wild flailing with the breakfast knife, she'd accidentally nicked herself. 

She swallows the injury to her professional pride, far deeper than the cut with that most innocuous of weapons, and notes that they must have been rather interested in taking her back alive.

The light from the window indicates it is early morning, meaning she has no recollection of what happened after her late morning swim, that afternoon, or the following night. Natasha takes a deep, steadying breath to test her lungs and summons a display of disinterested nonchalance as she gets up. Whoever is watching will not have the satisfaction of seeing her frustrated rage, nor that she considers being tended to, cleaned and dressed by unseen hands as anything out of the ordinary.

She _will_ get dressed and think of a new plan, a better plan. This was a temporary setback and it's only a matter of time until she leaves this technicolored nightmare. 

As she opens the closet her eyes fall on the freshly laundered black swimming costume, put back to greet her. They have even added a new, invitingly fluffy, terry cloth towel to the hanger. 

_Go on,_ it taunts her, _try again. We're not worried._

Another day, another round of aimless exploration. Looking for that new angle, that new path to escape - or, at the very least, an opportunity to inflict some damage to show his displeasure at being held captive. Isn’t the first duty of a POW to keep their captors on their toes? Well, _‘Number Nine’_ will be only too happy to follow tradition.

Clint bounds down the path from ‘his’ house, not because he feels particularly energized, but because he fears that if he hears Rose Lady comment on the weather one more time he might just rip off her face and feed it to the pigeons. Which wouldn’t be entirely fair, because her well-laundered brain probably has no idea about what’s going on, and so he speeds up to discourage conversation.

“Be seeing you!” she chirps after him, undaunted, marking his descent into the village.

When he gets to the square he stops momentarily to get his bearings. What to do today? Piss off the people at the _‘citizens advice bureau’_ with a request for a _Foolproof Escape Plan?_ Go to the Post Office and ask for a long-distance call? See how far he can get to the mountains before a chewing gum bubble turns him back?

And then he sees her.

That bright red hair that stands out even in this overly colorful world, white top, dark trousers, fashionably large sunglasses - and the picture of health. She is seated at a table outside a café. _The_ café, because like everything else in this place - except mindless, cheerful minions - there’s only one. 

Figures. Her ‘death’ was just another mind game then.

“Well, hello there,” he says, his voice sounding oddly hoarse, even to his own ears. “I thought you were dead.”

She looks up from her breakfast - ew, is that _Oatmeal?!_ \- and removes her shades. Clint swallows thickly and rethinks his previous assessment. 

Up close, her eyes are bloodshot and there is a sickly tint to her skin. She tries to speak, but no sound makes it out at first, causing her to clear her throat roughly; the effort sounds painful. 

"Good morning," she croaks out on a second attempt. "News of my demise are greatly exaggerated. People must be starved for entertainment around here." 

He grabs a chair, swings it around and straddles it, waving at the waiter - Number Fifty-Six, his pinned tag reads - and mouthing a request for coffee. Good thing everything here seems to come for free, like in one of those new-fangled all-inclusive resorts. 

“I dunno about that,” he says, giving her a thorough once-over as he turns back. “Sure looked convincing from where I was standing.” 

She gives him an unreadable look and a frown, something that might mean, _‘Seriously? You were watching me drown and did nothing?’_ and he shrugs. 

“You were too far out,” he explains, although he knows it’s a poor excuse for not trying to help, even if it would have been useless. Safer to change the topic. “At least now we know something more about those chewing gum things," he adds. 

If watching her all-but-drown hadn't already convinced him that she's for real, then seeing the state of her now goes a long way to confirm the suspicion. Time to offer her something in return. 

"Looks like these things can be both sticky and absorbent. In your case, sticky. I assume that was a good thing? How’d it feel?” 

He gives her the most honest expression he can muster, letting her see his anger at their situation as well as his determination to do something about it. She silently contemplates him for a moment while she has another couple of spoonfuls of the mushy stuff. 

"I don't know," she says, at long last, and it might just be the truth. Lost in thought, she worries at a bandaid on her wrist. "I don’t recall all the details."

“I wasn’t expecting a briefing,” he says, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Guess what I really want to know is, how’re you doing?”

Something flits across her face and she visibly tenses, emotions too fast to track. She composes herself immediately. Oh, she is good. Clint nods at the waiter, who deposits a coffee in front of him, in a proper cup and saucer with a cookie on the side.

"I'm fine." That’s fast too, but after a second's hesitation she adds a softer, "Been worse."

He nods slowly. Funny, it’s probably what he would have said in the same situation. 

“Fine is good.”

For a moment he hesitates, but… dammit. She took a risk, he can too.

“Another thing we’ve learned,” he says, lifting the coffee cup to his mouth and holding it there to block any prying cameras from reading his lips, “is that they don’t seem to hold a grudge when someone tries to get away.” 

She picks up on his trick immediately and an appropriate moment later, with a grimace, shields her lips with her hand, as if she’d burnt herself on the hot porridge. He makes a mental note not to play poker with her. This woman misses nothing.

"Because I woke up in my bed instead of at the bottom of the sea? Tell me something, Number Nine, if you’re so observant: why are _you_ still here?"

He shrugs.

“Turns out you need a special licence to fly the local choppers and I don’t seem to have the right one. Good news: they didn’t charge me with grand larceny.”

"You're a pilot." She visibly perks up and, from all he's seen of her, displaying that must be a conscious choice. "What happened?"

Clint shrugs again.

“Pilot is maybe a stretch. I can fly a few things, provided they’re not attached to a remote control. Which is kinda what happened.” 

Dammit. If this _is_ a poker game - and it increasingly looks like it is - it may be time for both of them to put a few more cards on the table. With another one of those inscrutable looks, she pushes her empty bowl away and delicately dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

"I had quite an exhausting afternoon yesterday. It would probably be a good idea to have a recreational stroll. Maybe we can..." - again she adds whole subclauses with her expressive eyebrows - _"walk and talk?"_

“At the same time?” He smirks back before slugging the rest of his coffee, not bothering to hide his gratification that she’d picked up the ball that quickly. “I think I might manage that.”

She pointedly watches the way he peels himself off his backwards chair.

“What's her name, then?" she says, a small smile playing over her lips like the invitation to a truce.

"Pardon?"

"The name of the horse you appear to be so sorely missing, cowboy."

"Rocinante," he says and, dropping his voice to a confidential whisper, “I have a thing about windmills.”

It’s funny; he hasn’t felt this relaxed since he’d been dumped in this bizarre prison and he suspects that she may feel the same way. 

He offers her his arm with a drawled, “Ma’am?” 

No doubt she’ll figure out that he’s not being a gentleman but a shield, although who knows how weak she may feel after that drowning thing. Either way, fuck the voyeurs.

"Lead the way, Don Quixote," she replies, her hand sure and warm on his arm. It's only a few steps later when he realizes that, for a moment, her accent had effortlessly imitated his own.


	5. Chapter 5

It's nice to work with a professional for once. The fact that Nine has training or experience similar to her own is becoming more apparent with each step of the way. Without a hitch he adapts to her leaning into him every so often, attempting to thwart potential lip readers by pretending to be much more flirtatious than she feels. It's not exactly a hardship though, as pressed so close she cannot fail to notice a pair of surprisingly muscular arms hidden underneath the loose, village-typical sports jacket. It raises the question of whether he might be a swimmer, potentially even a member of that recently founded US Navy Command, the _SEALs._

Once again, Natasha has to forcibly shake the observation that he might be an interesting investigative target all by himself. She's not reporting to anyone anymore, she reminds herself. Wherever he learned it, he is well-versed in tradecraft, although he does not strike her as CIA or FBI. Military intelligence, maybe; he has the bearing of a soldier.

“So where are we going?” she asks, taking in every twitching curtain in the windows along their path. 

Wearing a content smile on his face that is likely no more real than her own mask of gently cresting infatuation, he covers her hand with his own. 

“When I was recce’ing the place yesterday, before our various adventures in failure, I found this phone booth.” 

He must have felt her involuntary twitch of excitement against his arm, because he gives her a quick, equally enamoured glance before touching his lips as if embarrassed to have given his emotions away. It really is an inspired performance. 

“Don’t get excited," he murmurs behind his hand. "There's an operator service that will only connect calls inside the village. But there was another place I thought was kinda intriguing.”

He gives a theatrical grin, no doubt not meant for her, and raises his voice just as they are passing one of the speaker posts that likely double as listening posts.

“It’s called the _'palace of fun'!_ Just imagine, there’s fun to be had here! Wouldn’t that be … fun?”

“You mean even more fun? Golly, I just cannot wait!” she answers, her dry smirk only half pretence. _Bread and circuses. Figures._

"Could you make out any landmarks beyond the mountains?" she asks quietly, hardly moving her lips as she pretends to admire a row of ostentatious rose bushes. He seems like a smart guy, so she’s been unsurprised by him playing along with the infatuation angle. Still, she is unprepared when he reaches over, plucks a cluster of three white blossoms from the hedge, and, suddenly every bit as charming as Ol' Blue Eyes Sinatra himself, tucks the thornless stem behind her ear. Natasha's eyebrow rises almost on its own volition, caught between amusement at his dedication and concern about overdoing it. 

He grins back, appearing unapologetically entertained by her thinly-veiled sliver of disapproval. 

"Negative. No visible landmarks. Got pulled back before I could get past the perimeter," he purrs, for her ears only.

Something passes between them, but it is not the romance they are trying to sell. It's been so long that it takes Natasha an extensive amount of time to identify the feeling as _having fun._ There's a particular type of thrill in the dance that is manipulating expectations and it's rare to find a partner who knows the steps as well as she does; rarer still to find one who executes them this well. 

His smile is that perfect mix of real and pretend when he leans in, covertly scanning the road behind them.

"You see anything when you were out there? I mean, other than waves and jellyfish?"

To an observer, her negatory shrug could be a reaction to sweet whispered nothings. 

They slowly make their way up the hill, stopping at conveniently placed benches that are clearly bugged. There, they share snippets of lives neither of them has ever led. Natasha invents a black cat for herself, while he goes all out with a one-eyed dog and a whole elaborate backstory for how he’d come to own it. There is no end to his creativity it seems, as he dreams up one pointless detail after the other. He sure knows how to spin a yarn. But as soon as they are out of earshot he is all business, staying as impressively loose-limbed and relaxed as before. Maybe trust is too big a word for an acquaintance of this brevity, but a tentative alliance is definitely forming between them.

They compare notes on the reach and impermeability of the mysterious balloons, and briefly speculate on the material and the technology behind them. She learns that the helicopter had approximately a minute's worth of flight time - almost like a tease - before the controls were seized from him. He, that their captors evidently have topnotch medical care and, yes, an apparent tendency to gloat. Mrs Whatever-Her-Number-Is on the path leading up to their houses monitors both their comings and goings, all the while maintaining what must be the most thoroughly snipped rose hedge in the Western World. Which they appear to be in, based on his assessment of the position of the sun and the constellations at night, which matches her observations on the climate. 

By the time they reach their destination, her hand has slipped into his. There are peculiar calluses near the bend of distal and middle phalanx on the first three fingers of both his hands, not consistent with the use of any weapon she is familiar with. 

Time will tell whether he can be trusted.

_Two reaches for his tea and takes a sip, after first blowing delicately to dissipate the heat._

 _“Pardon me. Isn’t it potentially dangerous to allow these two to…_ fraternize?" 

_The woman beside him clearly discards a few choice descriptors, finally choosing to finish her sentence with the facial expression of someone swallowing something unpleasant._

_"They’ve both tried to escape once already. What if they learn to work together?”_

_Two tut-tuts indulgently._

_“That would be…interesting. Let’s enjoy the game, Fifty, shall we?”_

Inside, the _‘palace of fun’_ is as boring and stuffy as a place can be that is painted in stripes and primary colours. By silent consent they ignore the cheery greeting from a man with a bell cap, the number Forty-Seven on his lapel, and a second badge that says 'fun director' underneath. Beyond him is a large common room, filled with groups of purple wingback chairs and an assortment of game boards. Only a small handful of the seating areas are occupied, by villagers whose brows are furrowed in concentration over whichever simple game is keeping them riveted. The whole atmosphere is reminiscent of a library or old folks home rather than a place made for entertainment.

"I don't think I was prepared for quite so much hilarity all at once," Natasha observes flatly. 

For a split-second Nine looks at her, baffled, before laughing out loud, startling a group of players absorbed in their game of Checkers. 

"Shh!" Natasha hisses, placing a cheeky finger over his lips. "You can’t laugh in here. This is the Fun Room!"

He chuckles. “I understood that reference... Didn’t know they let you watch subversive movies in the ol’ Soviet Union.”

They advance past a large coat rack filled with coats and props labeled _human chess,_ all the way to the back of the room, where a second set of wide double doors overlooks a manicured lawn strewn with colourful hoops. 

"Have you ever played croquet?" Natasha asks, ignoring his last comment. 

“Only the full contact version,” he deadpans. “Mallets. Excellent for making contact with the human skull.”

"How am I not surprised? Come, I'll teach you."

It is not her favourite sport by a long shot, but considering angles and propelling balls in a chosen direction through kinetic energy is close enough to the kind of thing she excels at. His comment about mallets confirms her suspicion that neither patience nor subtlety are his strong suit; beating him in friendly competition might help her judge how he deals with disappointment - valuable intel in case of future cooperation.

Nine casts an appreciative look over the hooks holding a set of mallets, each ringed with their own primary colour, and the row of matching balls. Reaching for the purple set, he shakes his head. 

“I thought they didn’t allow weapons in this place.”

"Anything can be a weapon in the right hands," Natasha notes offhandedly, choosing the red set and approaching the starting point, where a stake has been rammed into the ground. 

“No shit,” he says, looking meaningfully at the building behind them. “You ever see what you can do with a bunch of checkers, when you-”

She swats him playfully on the arm.

"Croquet,” she reminds him. “It's like an obstacle course where you try to get your ball to the end before mine. You start by tapping the stake with your ball, from… here. If you hit, you can play on. Here, I’ll start and show you." 

Her first whack of the mallet after the opening tap sends her ball in the direction of the first hoop, not right through but as opening shots go it's not terrible. Especially since she's effectively barred the way for him to play through.

She watches him consider his options, then, when he is about to make his move, leans in to add: "Of course, that stake is quite pointy. Set between the fourth and fifth rib, it would take hardly any strength at all."

As flirting goes, it’s probably a bit on the dark side, but worth it for the slight hesitation in his downswing.

Despite the distraction, he taps the stake without problem. _Too bad._

“Good for vampires too, I suspect,” he says with a wink. In one long stride, he steps to where his ball now sits, frowns for a second, and lines up the shot. “Bet those wire hoops would make a fine garrotte, in the right hands.” 

He doesn't even look at what he is doing, confidently grinning at her as his mallet hits the purple ball, sending it careening off in a highly improbable arc. It rolls a couple of feet, hits her red one so it veers off sharply to the left, out of contention for her next shot, and spins through the hoop.

“Oh, look.” He smirks. “I got lucky. Still my turn?”

_“Did you see that shot?”_

_“I did.”_

_“That was… remarkable.”_

_"Wasn't it just. He is a remarkable man, our Number Nine. Just like Number Eight is a remarkable woman. I dare say we are in for some fun ourselves watching them get to know each other."_

_Two sounds rather pleased with himself._

Maybe he shouldn’t have shown off with his very first shot, like some eager teenager trying to impress a pretty girl, but that slightly strained smile on her face makes it all worth it. She doesn’t like to lose, does she.

He lines up his next shot and, despite the crazy angle, manages to get it through all three dutifully lined up hoops in one go. This time she purses her lips in deep thought and it occurs to him that they are quite possibly the most luscious…

_Shit._ Don’t go there. Don’t become a spectacle for Number Two and his minions.

On his next turn he taps the ball so that it falls just a touch short.

“Oops?” he says, pitching his grin just a little too wide.

The narrow-eyed glare she gives him in return is almost worth having been kidnapped from Guatemala. Eight does not appreciate being condescended to anymore than she likes to lose it would appear. The challenge that now rises in her eyes does funny things to his insides, which he sweeps aside with a bow and a flourish with his mallet.

“Your turn, M’lady,” he says.

She harrumphs and takes her position behind the red ball.

“I’m no lady,” she says. “And you, _Mister_ Nine, are no gentleman.”

“You wound me.” He clutches at his chest.

She investigates the shot she will need to take to get through the hoop after the wreckage of a placement Clint has left her with. Her tongue comes out and traces her lower lip as she concentrates; the sight is seriously distracting. Probably deliberate, he concludes.

Eight makes the shot and, for a second, the ball travels towards the hoop in the impossibly acute angle it will need to get through, only to bounce over an inconvenient clump of earth and veer off to the side.

She utters a curse under her breath, in a language Clint doesn’t quite catch. Evidently her competitive streak has not been curtailed even here, in Technicolor Hell. For a moment he feels a spot of sympathy, but challenging the Amazing Hawkeye to a game involving projectiles was always doomed to spectacular failure. 

“My turn?” he asks, aware that he cannot quite keep the predatory streak out of his voice.

“Please,” she says, all sweetness and light. “Show me what you can do, _soldat._ Impress me, if you can.”

"Impress you? All right then. Watch this." 

Clint tosses the purple-striped ball high in the air, reaches for the mallet and, as the ball descends, swings it in a short, sharp arc. There is no follow-through on the swing; when the bottom of the mallet connects it does so with a short, sharp crack, transferring its full kinetic energy into the ball. The ball in turn shoots across the field in a flat line drive, straight for the nearest camera, which explodes into a thousand shards.

"I'm pretty sure the official croquet guidelines would call that an illegal move," Eight remarks, as dry as a good martini but with a hint of an impressed smile tugging at her lips.

"Oops," Clint repeats, much more smugly this time. 

He is about to follow with a wise-ass remark, but is halted by the way her smile freezes, attention caught by something behind him. Clint turns to follow her line of sight, only to see a white ball heading for them. For him.

_Shit._

"At least now we know the cameras are worth more than your average minion," he says, with more bravado than he feels, and starts running.


	6. Chapter 6

Running, as it turns out, is no more helpful against the rubber balls than swimming or sharp instruments and having one plaster itself over his face had been closer to suffocation than Clint’s ever wanted to come.

He has been unstuck from the ball and in his captors’ lair for a few minutes now, but his breath still wants to come in irregular gulps; it takes his best efforts to control it, to calm it down.

“Don’t worry, you will recover,” a flat voice comments from somewhere behind him. “The Rover was set to fetch, not to kill.”

Clint snaps his head around.

"Who the fuck are you?" he gasps at the unfamiliar guy with the greying temples currently seated in the ominous ball chair.

"I am the new Number Two." 

Clint wonders not for the first time just who Number One may be, and how many Threes may be waiting in the wings for promotion, but the look Two is giving him makes him feel like that's expected of him, so he refuses to play along on principle. 

"What happened to the other one?" he asks instead.

“That is none of your concern. Tell me, Number Nine. Did you really think we would let destruction of village property go unanswered?” 

This Number Two’s voice, in contrast to the usual polite diffidence affected by his peers, has an icy undertone. 

Clint clears his throat.

“I dunno, did you really think _I_ was going to let all your bullshit go unanswered?” he replies. “You’re lucky I haven’t let out more of my feelings on more of your henchpeople, ‘cause Lord knows, it’s been tempting.”

“We were hoping that, as a man of the world, you would display better manners, Number Nine.”

Clint shrugs.

“I grew up in a circus. No one around to teach me manners except the clowns and you know how _they_ get when they don’t get their way.” 

Two shakes his head as if at a petulant child. 

"Are you ever serious Number Nine?"

"Not if I can help it." Clint smiles blandly. Is Two trying to get at something? Well, if so, slowing things down a bit with idiotic banter won’t hurt. May help regulate his breathing, too; maybe those fucking balls get filled with the air of their vicims? 

"What happens after the next punchline, though? Do you ever stop to think about the future?"

Beginning to sound like that wannabe recruiter in Guatemala now, except that one didn’t beat him up before offering a pension plan.

"When the punchline fails, the punching starts. Unless the villainous monologue comes first."

"Very witty, I'm sure. Only we are far from being villains, Number Nine."

Yep, here it comes. He stands up and yawns ostentatiously; good, his lungs seem to be working again.

"Okay, I'll bite: gimme the pitch. Tell me what you want from me. Because that bit about wanting to know who I’ve been working for? That’s crap." 

Two is visibly unmoved. 

"We believe that you aren't nearly as indifferent to the world around you as you would have everyone believe, Number Nine. You care about people, no matter how some of them keep disappointing you, isn't that right? Don't look so surprised, we've done our homework." 

Clint walks over and perches on the edge of the round console, running his fingers over the many-coloured buttons in studied diffidence as the man continues.

"Despite what you may think, we are not the enemy. You endeavour to make the world a better place, by removing some of its worst actors. So do we." 

Clint’s index finger is hovering over a random button now and he raises a questioning eyebrow.

"Please don't touch that. You just escaped one form of death, do you really wish to court another?" 

Clint can't decide whether the guy is bluffing, although someone who employs weather balloons as bouncers would probably not be above booby-trapping a desk. He withdraws his hand with a shrug.

"Thank you." Two gives a joyless smile. "We didn't bring you here to stop your work, Nine. We brought you in to _realize your potential."_

"Let's assume for a moment I believe that bullshit. Why this…” Clint waves his hands in an all-inclusive circle around the room, “...bizarre set-up?"

"Oh Number Nine, that is low. Disagree with our methods as much as you like, but don't insult the décor. Numbers Seventeen to Twenty-Seven slaved for months to make this place as welcoming and pleasant as possible for our various guests. Isn't your apartment exactly like the cozy little place you rented in London? We copied even the water stains on the bathroom wall to make you feel at home."

Clint mulls this over, in the end deciding on a heartfelt, "You gotta be fucking kidding me. All this, just to recruit me?"

"Not _just_ for that, don’t flatter yourself, Number Nine. But if you so will, then yes."

"Why the fuck didn't you just ask?"

"Would you have listened, without seeing what we can do?" Two keeps that eerily calm gaze on him, long fingers steepled.

Clint sees no need to reply; they both know there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he’d join their flock of oddly dressed, robotic followers out of his own free will. Which begs the question of the entire set-up - a factory for Manchurian candidates? 

"What about Eight?" he asks after a moment. "Why is she here?"

"For the same reason you are." The man sounds mildly bored now.

"Who is she?"

"That would be telling." Two rises from his chair, the console the only thing left separating them. Something in the man's vulpine, leering look sets Clint’s teeth on edge. "Don't think we missed your interest in her, which she appears to reciprocate. We can make a lot of things possible, if you join us.” 

The short, humourless bark Clint lets out is hardly a laugh.

“What's so funny?"

"I'm imagining what Eight will do to you when she finds out you’re pimping her out as a bargaining chip for my signature on a recruitment form." 

"Who says she isn't already amenable to the idea, Nine? There's no need to force the willing. Besides, you'd be surprised to learn to what lengths your Number Eight has gone in the past to achieve her objectives. Come to think of it, maybe we should make you become hers, rather than the other way around?"

"I don't think I like what you're implying here." 

Clint’s fingers fold into fists.

"Do not pretend that either of you is any more virtuous than the other, Number Nine," Two sneers. "That is precisely why we will have both of you in the end.” 

Something snaps in Clint. Whether it’s the contemptuous dismissal or the assumption of supremacy in that statement, he won’t be able to tell afterwards. With a heartfelt, “Fuck you!” he vaults across the console as the other man instinctively shrinks back. 

Before Two can so much as lift his hands in self-defence, Clint has his neck in a vise-like grip and starts pressing down. Bent backwards over the console, Two’s feet start to flail wildly in the air, first knocking the tea tray off and then shattering the lava lamp next to it, splattering some unspeakable orange glop against the wall in the process.

With all the pent-up fury and frustration of the last few days pouring into his hands and the world turning red with the rawness of his rage, Clint neither hears nor sees the person who drives the syringe into his neck. One moment he is a steel trap closing down on a man’s life, the next he is sinking into darkness, his consciousness ebbing away.

_“This is the second time he has killed one of our people. And not just anyone - Number Two. Surely this time there will be punishment?”_

_The face on the screen is cool and relaxed._

_“The man is a killer. So is Eight, for that matter. This is why we brought them here. Do you punish the wolf for stalking, the lion for rending, the raptor for finding its prey? Those are beings of beauty, of power, like Skoll and Hati, hunters of the sun and the moon - creatures to be honoured and revered.”_

_Number Forty-Nine nods slowly._

_“One mustn't destroy such assets, they need to be molded to our purpose. Deployed to our advantage. I see that now. Thank you.”_

_“Indeed. It has been achieved before; it will be again.” The other looks thoughtful for a moment, before breaking out into a blinding smile. “Of course, to bring such magnificent predators to heel, you need both reward and punishment. Maybe your first thought was not so wrong after all, Forty-Nine.”_

Natasha has noticed that after curfew the doors to the outside no longer open by themselves. Still, the residential door that can withstand her determination has not been invented yet and, with a quiet snick, the lock disengages, yielding access to house number nine.

All is quiet, with the low hum of a refrigerator in the kitchenette the only sound. Judging from a first glance, Nine's place is insignificantly smaller than her own and clearly modelled after another place. 

Maybe there will be another time for a more thorough investigation. Right now Natasha pushes on into a second room. In a single bed, Nine lies as unnaturally still as a patient in a hospital; the cream coloured duvet covering him up to the neck is so crisp and wrinkle-free it’s clearly been pulled up by someone else.

He's alive, just sleeping. 

Natasha feels a previously unnoticed tension leave her shoulders. She bends to click on the small lamp on the nightstand. His brows twitch and he makes an aborted movement away from the light. 

"Nine?" she asks softly, moving closer and sitting on the edge of the mattress, running a hand over his forehead to check for clamminess or an abnormal temperature. She is familiar with the effects of an encounter with those mysterious white balls, but it's impossible to say what else they might've done to him. At least this way she can rule out certain drugs. 

Despite its spiky look, his hair is surprisingly soft and, before she knows what she's doing, Natasha has let her fingers trail down the side of his face to cup his angular jaw. _They've even given him a shave,_ she thinks just as he wakes with a start. 

He blinks, unable to focus for a moment, before his eyes turn suddenly wild and his head snaps left and right, searching for an unseen danger. Underneath the blanket his hands curl into fists, their movement slow and controlled as if checking for fetters or ties.

Natasha winces in sympathy, the disorientation all too painfully familiar. Without consciously deciding on it, she attempts to soothe him with low, shushing sounds. 

On the nightstand there's a pitcher of water and she pours him a glass. When he sits up, leaning back against the headboard, his haunted eyes follow her every move. 

"Drink," she says, but he makes no move to take the glass, his expression somewhere between fear and stubbornness. 

"Why, what's in it?" His eyes narrow.

"Water." It's obvious he's still suspicious so she takes a drink herself before offering the glass once more. "Hydrate," she insists as she pushes it back into his unresisting hands. He makes no move to comply.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounds thick, but surprisingly harsh. “Where did they go?”

"We were playing croquet, remember? You never came back from your rendezvous with the bubble. See the window? It's night. We're an hour past curfew." 

She shrugs, pretending to be unaware that needing to know how much time has passed would be the first thing on his mind, drugged as he is. It's obvious to her that's what must have happened, the way he keeps blinking too much and licks his dry lips. 

The question is whether he's pretending as well, to make her trust him.

Quicker than he can scramble away, she kneels next to him, cupping his jaw in one hand and angling his face towards the light. His eyes widen helpfully on their own in surprise, allowing her to check for dilated pupils and burst capillaries.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

She realizes a split second too late that perhaps she would have been better off explaining first. Mistakes like this have cost some of her sisters dearly.

Luckily, he's only holding a glass, not a knife, but it takes all her reflexes to parry the thing as it heads for her face with a sudden snap of his wrist. His torso bolts forward as he tries to go for her neck. Fortunately he is on his back, hindered by blankets and slowed down by whatever they’ve pumped into him, so Natasha has little difficulty grabbing his arms and pinning him down. The water spilled by his first attack drips down onto her blouse and soaks into the mattress beside them. 

"Stop that and _listen_ to me." Blinking the moisture from her eyes and telegraphing every movement, she slowly lets go of his arms, takes the glass from where it has landed on top of the duvet, and refills it, placing it within easy reach on the nightstand. “Whatever they did, it’s over now. I’m the only one here.”

In the silence of the room his breath still comes short and hard, but, for the moment at least, he seems to have abandoned his efforts to kill her. Natasha considers it progress. 

"Does your mouth feel dry and your skin too tight? You were gone for a few hours. Think about it. Chances are high you were drugged; I was trying to have a look at your eyes to confirm." For the first time since she arrived, she chances a pinched little smile. "I'm sorry I startled you."

Although he doesn’t look particularly convinced, he appears to momentarily consider her words. 

“They came up from behind,” he says. “I blacked out. No clue what happened after that. Questions, probably. Don’t think they broke anything…?" He pales and she recognizes his fear, that dread of not knowing what a skilled interrogator might have drawn from him in an altered state of mind. "At least no bones, far as I can tell.”

She suppresses a wince of sympathy.

“Would you like me to check and make sure?” 

Nine pauses, as if searching inside himself. 

“I think I’d know. All I feel is… drained.” 

He shakes his head, running a hand over the side of his throat where it disappears into the collar of his chequered flannel pyjamas. In the gloom, it's impossible to make out something as small as a needle mark, but Natasha thinks she can see a faint swelling. 

“Looks like they stuck something in your neck.”

He grunts in vague acknowledgement, reaches for the glass on the nightstand, and finally takes a sip of water before speaking again. 

“You still haven’t told me how you got in here. Aren’t these joints locked after dark or something?”

He’s asking lucid questions now and generally appears more aware of his surroundings. While he still watches her every move as keen as a hawk, Natasha also notices his eyes briefly pausing as he notices the way the wet fabric of her shirt clings to her curves. His instincts - all of them - appear to be intact. More progress. 

"Please. Locks like these haven't stopped me since I was ten." 

Moving slowly to avoid startling him again, she slides a small paring knife from her sleeve, throwing it underhand towards the kitchen and out of reach. She raises both hands to shoulder height to show that she's unarmed.

“You seem to have access to an endless supply of knives,” he says sharply, but sinks back into his pillow, the conversation apparently having taken more out of him than he seems to be prepared to admit. For a moment he lies still, his eyes closed tightly.

“Tell me just one thing,” he finally says, opening his eyes again and looking straight into hers, his tone a mixture of defiance and desperation. “Are you here because you want to be, or because they sent you?" 

He searches her face intently as he waits for an answer. Suddenly he seems so lost, so defeated, so unlike the confident maverick she thought she knew, that all deflecting jokes and dissembling remarks die on her tongue. 

"My choice. My decision." Her voice is low, so soft as to be almost inaudible even to her own ears. "I promised myself some time ago that I would never allow anyone else to dictate what I do, or who I should be. I know what it is like to be unmade. Nobody will ever do it to me again."

Silence drags on as he seems to move her words in his mind, eyes firmly locked with hers. But then, slowly - so slowly Natasha is able to deny the movement to herself and not pull back - he sits upright again. 

His hand, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder, is a warm, strangely grounding presence.

"Thank you," he says, bone-deep relief eminent in every cell of his body. 

Natasha allows herself to return his intense look with a hesitant smile. Now that he appears more collected, the fact that they are alone in his bedroom - his bed even - sinks in like an afterthought.

Her heartbeat is deafening in her ears when, suddenly, his eyes flick to her lips. 

In an unspoken understanding, they lean in at the same time. His chapped lips are surprisingly gentle and undemanding when they alight on hers. As kisses go, it is almost chaste, yet Natasha feels heat rising in her cheeks. An unfamiliar, not unpleasant flutter settles deep in her stomach and she wants nothing more than to let herself melt into the sensation. 

But reality is what it is. 

Regretfully, she pulls away from the kiss and rests her forehead against his. She cannot tell whether he's opened his eyes, because she keeps her own firmly closed to hold on to the moment for a few seconds longer. 

"This is not a good idea," she whispers when she stands to leave, hating that while she knows it to be true she wants nothing more than to stay. 

If she is to get out of this place she cannot let herself be compromised.

_“Did they…?”_

_“They did not. Shame, really. It was looking so promising there for a moment.”_

_“Well, Ma’am, if I may be so bold. Perhaps your predecessor’s comments made him a bit hesitant.”_

_“Do not call me Ma’am, Sixteen. I am Two. And he did not look entirely hesitant to me. But what exactly did the previous Two say to him? It must have been quite upsetting to Number Nine to cause the man to crush his larynx - and with all of you right here. It is not as if you didn’t know he was a killer.”_

_Sixteen winces a little at the criticism, but he knows his duty._

_“I believe he offered Nine the possibility of a more, erm, intimate cooperation with Number Eight, if he so wished, Ma’... Two.”_

_Two turns from the view screens and thoughtfully purses her lips._

_“Fascinating. For a mercenary he seems oddly averse to bribery, even though he is clearly interested in the prize he was offered. Make a note of that, Sixteen. We will need to consider a different approach.”_

_“And Eight?”_

_Two strums her fingers on the console._

_“Her 'reservations’ will need to be overcome first. But I do believe it can be done. It is a good thing I was sent here.”_


	7. Chapter 7

The next couple of days pass in a bit of a blur. It may be that the drugs are still working their way out of his body, but it’s just as likely to be his brain trying to deal with the enigma that is Eight. For a moment there, he thought they might have connected on a whole new level, but she’s been keeping her distance ever since that night, trying to keep a few feet between them at all times.

Mind you, that… _kiss_ had come about a minute after he’d pretty much accused her of being one of Them, two minutes after he’d thrown a glass of water at her, and three after being out cold. So maybe she’s not entirely wrong to pretend the whole thing never happened, since he himself isn’t entirely sure anymore that it did. But at least she’s not ignoring him and she still seems to want to work together, so there’s that. And frankly, all things considered, having a comrade-in-arms in this place is worth a heck of a lot more than a drug-induced smooch.

Meanwhile, she seems content to let him lie low and clean out his metabolism sitting on a deckchair outside ‘his’ house while she continues explorations on her own. Occasionally she returns with something to share. 

Like a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables: “A balanced diet is the best thing for benzodiazepine withdrawal, so it should help you recover. Besides, no one should ever eat only steak and potatoes. You’ll die of clogged arteries before you’re forty.” 

Then there’s the new map, exactly the same as the old maps, except she points at the bandstand, says something about a concert tomorrow, and then double-taps the road leading between the mountains just to the north of it.

“Just think,” she says chirpily, in the tone he’d expect from Mrs. Rose-snipper down the path, _“everyone_ will be at the concert, all dressed in their village best. We should go together, because there’ll be so many people we’d never find each other! Imagine the _fun_ we could have.”

She taps the map again, as if going after a stray bug that refuses to die: short long short, pause, short short long, pause, long short.

_Morse code for R-U-N._

He has to admit, she’s good. It's hard to decide which of them seems happier at the fact that he picks up the hints she's been dropping. The sparkle in her eye suggests she has a few more tricks up her sleeve.

***

On the night of the promised concert, Clint picks one of the new, more _village-like_ outfits, that have appeared in his closet, along with an extra lava lamp in the kitchen, while he was out cold. Are they considered punishment for speeding up the turnover rate of Number Twos, or a misplaced incentive to join the club? Either way, he puts on a good show of succumbing to assimilation, dressing in a pink-and-white striped jacket and white chinos. The stripes almost make him gag; the mirror reflects a creature straight out of a Disney movie, ready to burst into song. 

Eight greets him on their shared patio, looking sharp as a tack in neatly creased red pants, a black top, camel-coloured cape, and a fetching red hat that completely covers her tell-tale hair. 

“You look very dapper today.” She smiles approvingly. “Those stripes become you.”

“Life time career goal of becoming a beach umbrella: achieved,” he grouses. “Too bad they don’t serve booze in this joint. I could use a stiff one.”

Rose Lady insists on sticking a red rose into both of their lapels as they pass. “For luck and a lovely evening!” she trills, with a smile that could sweeten the coffee for a whole army. A beacon for the cameras to track? For a partially lobotomized minion, she does know her tradecraft.

Clint tosses his rose into a hedge as soon as they are out of sight of their overly solicitous neighbour. Eight keeps hers until they pass another woman with a cape not unlike her own. With a smile and a graceful bow, she bestows the flower on the vacuous dame.

“All right then,” says Clint with a sigh. “Let’s become one with our fellow villagers and hope our overlords’ musical taste doesn’t match their fashion sense.”

White folding chairs are arranged in loose rows on the lawn in front of the bandstand, close enough for conversation but never far enough apart to make it a private one. The invigorating beat of the _Radetzky March_ strongly suggests that everybody had better be in good cheer.

On the stage, two men and two women in matching village-couture are warming up their voices.

Natasha makes only a minimal attempt to hide the strain in her own voice as she comments, "Of course it would be a barbershop quartet." 

There is only a single type of music more nerve-wracking to her than this and she is very happy nobody has ever found out about her Achilles heel. Should anyone ever try torture by hand organ, Natasha fears she would spill the secrets of the Motherland faster than they could say ‘polka’. 

Luckily she is a professional, so she’s able to smile blandly as they stroll across the grass, her hand resting in the crook of Nine's chivalrous elbow. That the almost familiar gesture saves her from having to actually look at his face is a bonus. Ever since the aborted interlude at his place, hiding conspiracy beneath flirtation has gained another, less comfortable layer that she would rather not examine more closely. 

"Why?" He picks up her comment, drawing her from her musings. "You not a fan? Straw hats, uniform jackets, striped sticks up their asses? What's not to love?"

Laughing under her breath, she follows him to a pair of seats in the second row. It's far enough to the side to make it easy to exit without attracting too much attention, should they decide not to wait out the performance. Nobody in the audience is paying more than passing attention to the singers; everyone is busy chattering and a blonde young lady wearing the customary striped cape makes the rounds offering sandwiches and bottled lemonade, likely eavesdropping from behind her vendor's tray. 

"I'm sure there's a trio somewhere in the village desperate for a fourth man, if you're so inclined," Natasha tells Nine sweetly, watching the performers. The man furthest to the left leans in to the microphone for his solo and catches her eye, imploring her to _‘let me call you sweetheart’._

"I may have hidden talents, you know. You think they’d let me pick my own tune?" Nine wonders out loud at her side, but she's only half-listening now. 

The singer - Number Eighty-Five, if she's not mistaken - is in his late twenties, tall, slender, dark skin, and strong black sideburns. There is a playful look about him, something a little less empty maybe than the rest of the villagers. His attention is focused entirely on her, crooning in a pleasant tenor that he's in love with her, with the microphone the only thing standing between him and the apparent object of his desire and even that becomes a means to an end. He grabs it off the stand for his solo moment, practically swallowing the thing on a drawn-out note. 

"Eight? You with me here?"

Nine elbows her in the side to regain her attention. He must know what she’s doing, but somehow it seems to irk him.

"Hm? Sorry. What would you sing if it was you behind that mic? _That's Amore? High Hopes?"_

She notices a brief flicker of annoyance cross his face, but it's quickly replaced by his usual carefree mien. 

"Frankie or Dino? Those old mafia types? Please. _Hard Rain's Gonna Fall._ No question.” He changes into a sing-song: _"Saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it…"_

His raspy baritone carries with it an attractive hint of smoky bars and stormy weather, but Natasha turns resolutely back towards the stage. Right now, her focus has to be on another singer. 

"And here I thought the combination of love and pizza would appeal to you. Is your song suitable for barbershop? Can't say I'm familiar with it."

"Barbershops are where ballads go to die." He gets up a little too quickly. "If you'll excuse me."

Natasha tries to read his retreating back for what may have caused his sudden cooling on the art form, but fails. 

On stage, the quartet bows to signal the end of their set and packs up their equipment, including the mics. She joins in the round of polite clapping when a bearded man with a set of bagpipes takes their place. Eighty-Five shoots her another lingering look over his shoulder as he leaves the stage. 

Natasha returns his look with finely calibrated interest, suppressing any sudden, unbidden and unwelcome thoughts about Nine’s reaction in the process.

As he leaves the stage, Eighty-five is waylaid by a short, stout man who appears to be a genuine fan. Natasha makes sure to meet the singer’s eyes again as she walks over to join them, a little extra sway in her step. 

With a passing glance back at the crowd, she spots Nine in the distance. From this angle there is no indication of his previous tension; he seems fully absorbed in conversation with the pretty hawker, who has just handed him a garishly-coloured candy on a stick. Surely Nine is wiser than… He breaks into one of those full sunshine smiles in the woman’s direction before giving his lollipop an excessively long lick. 

Is he _flexing?!_

"Hello." 

Natasha stops in her tracks. The fan has moved on; in her attempt to keep sight of Nine, she's almost collided with a smiling Number Eighty-Five. 

Focus, Natasha. 

"Hello yourself," she replies breathlessly, flustering as prettily as she can and opening her eyes wide. “You have an _amazing_ voice. How much of that is you, and how much does the microphone help?”

_“I thought she was interested in Nine? I don’t understand why she is flirting with Eighty-Five now.”_

_Two measures the questioner with a pair of cool, grey eyes._

_“You are focusing on exactly the thing that she wants you to see. It’s a distraction. They are planning something. Be ready.”_

_She rises from the ball seat with precision bordering on grace._

_“In the meantime, I will attend the performance myself. I require cultural nourishment.”_

He’s not entirely sure why he feels so pissed off that Eight is making eyes at some village number, but there’s no doubt that watching her notice him eye-fucking the candy girl in return feels better than it should.

He turns on the charm, adding extra wattage to his smile.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” 

The line sounds lame to him even as he says it, but this is a place for clichés and she sure doesn’t seem to mind. She bats her lashes and giggles. Her eyes are a very pretty blue, although there’s nobody home behind them. He finds himself unaccountably missing a pair of clear, challenging green ones - but those are busy being batted at a smarmy singer, who must’ve been demoted to this place from deep in the Catskills. 

“I’m providing sweets to the villagers,” she breathlessly states the obvious. “Would you like one?”

Of course he would. 

“I live for the sweeter things in life,” he says with a grin.

She hands him a round lollipop, red ring around a white center with one of those bikes melted into it, giggling again as their fingers touch in the process. He gives the thing a long, lingering lick that has her blushing furiously and winks at her lasciviously. 

“Let’s hope we won’t get rain tonight,” he says, nodding towards the direction of the sea where a few clouds have begun to gather. “Would be a real shame; we wouldn’t like seeing you get all wet, would we?”

He wanders off to the sound of her mildly scandalized giggle, whistling to himself. He doubts that she’ll forget their little encounter anytime soon. Report away, sweetums. 

The bagpipe is mewling pitifully as the piper starts his set on the stage; good thing the smarmy band took their microphones with them. Clint looks back to where he’d last seen Eight. She is still fawning over the singer, listening raptly to something he is saying - or possibly singing. Her hands are trailing down his chest, arresting on the bag slung over his shoulders.

A small voice inside his head tells him that she is way too good at this.

Clint tears his eyes away and takes another lick of the lollipop. It’s disgustingly sweet, the stuff dentists’ dreams are made of, but what it lacks in taste it makes up for in stickiness. He nods a greeting at a couple that seems engrossed in the bagpiper’s performance, clapping excitedly at a particularly vile crescendo. 

“Lovely piece, innit?” he says cheerfully. “Did you know the Brits used those things on D-day, to scare the Nazis? Worked too. They lost the war.” 

The woman looks appalled; the man sputters something incomprehensible. Surely they won’t miss the umbrella leaning against the back of her chair, or the straw hat hung over the corner of his. 

***

When it comes to party food, villagers apparently have simple tastes: lollipops, pretzels, and hot dogs, yum. All the major food groups, without any of the flavour. But since those are the only choices there is a reasonable crowd around the bratwurst stand and Clint dives right in.

“I’m surprised you managed to tear yourself away from your admirer,” a husky voice says beside his left elbow. “She looked ready to swoon.”

Eight has somehow found a different cape, pulled off an unsuspecting concert-goer no doubt. The new model is as striped as his jacket and matches the lollipop he’s just stuck in his pocket.

“I guess the theme for tonight is loud and unsubtle?” he says as he guides her out of the crowd, using one hand to flip the stolen straw boater on his head and twirling the umbrella with the other. “That crooner was practically licking the mic when he was singing at you.”

She gives him a peculiar look. 

“Eighty-Five - _High Five,_ to his closest friends - is a _very_ talented musician, I'll have you know. He gave me a most _fascinating_ demonstration of breathing techniques in sound generation.”

“I stand corrected: maybe he _was_ offering a blow job.” Clint turns his head sideways as they pass one of the camera poles, to ensure it catches only the hat. “Over here.”

Hooking her arm into his free one, Eight slips something into his pocket as she matches his leisurely stride through the decorative hedges lining the yard of the _‘citizen's advice bureau’._

"You know, I think I underestimated this place and its people," she ponders. "All of them have such _unique things to offer.”_

“Yeah.” He shrugs, wedging the umbrella under his arm and allowing his fingers to briefly close around hers. “But none of them have what it takes.”

She looks up at him from underneath heavily painted lashes.

“Very true. But if you think about it, _we have everything we need,_ wouldn't you agree?" 

Man, she is good. Worth a thousand candy girls and several dozen smarmy singers.

"Yup.” He smiles down at her, his earlier idiotic bout of jealousy only a vague memory. “And way too much culture. I say we grab a taxi and have ourselves some alone time.”

"Wonder how far we can take it,” she says, her smile a little more predatory than ever before.


	8. Chapter 8

A handful of golf carts with striped roofs are waiting as Natasha and Nine approach the taxi stand. In no time they are on their way - at the breathtaking speed of an average lawn mower.

The driver slows down even further to take the first corner away from the village square and Nine's leg begins to twitch with impatience. 

"Apologies, Number Seventy." Natasha loosens the tasselled drawstring of her cape as she addresses the driver. "Would you mind pulling over for just a moment? The wind is not being kind to my hair." 

"Of course, Number Eight, gladly." The car rolls to an immediate stop at the side of the road, conveniently away from the nearest camera post. "Will you be needing -" 

Nine startles minutely as Natasha quickly and efficiently throws the cord that used to hold her cape around the unsuspecting woman's neck. However, he recovers just as quickly, wasting no time watching and instead turning to scan their surroundings for incoming hostiles. 

It is over quickly enough. With a knee against the woman's back providing the necessary leverage, Natasha tightens the cord followed by a quick twist that results in a tell-tale crunch. She lets go of the cord and, with a heave, tips the body out of the car into the nearest shrubbery. Nine moves to climb into the driver's seat, but Natasha is quick to stop him with an open palm against his chest. 

"I'm driving. Haven't you noticed? All the cabbies are women." 

“I hope your driving is like your garotte work then,” he growls. “‘Cause the women drivers I’ve met so far don’t seem to know the gas pedal from a toilet flush.” 

It's a peculiar notion, that Nine trusting her to dispatch a woman without lifting a finger to assist should make her like him even more, - but this is what Natasha feels: an odd, sudden wave of kinship and affection.

Her hair now hidden underneath the late chauffeur’s cap, Natasha bites back a comeback in favour of flooring the aforementioned pedal. Gravel spatters behind them as they head for the mountains at a considerably higher speed than before.

“Oh, goody,” he says. “With any luck, we’ll get to those mountains by midnight.”

That his knuckles are white as he grips the side of the car doesn't hurt either. 

"Any background in racing go-karts that I should know about?" he asks, his grin growing forced as she takes a corner with only the barest of deceleration. 

"Classified information," she replies, but finds herself laughing. 

Ahead looms a closed, red-and-white barrier, the first justified use of candy-cane stripes she has seen. Behind it, the road changes and becomes hard-packed dirt, narrowing and winding into the green hills.

_Walking up to the bandstand, the Butler offers a ringing red cordless phone on a silver tray. Annoyed at the interruption, Two throws a final lingering glance at the village choir performing a harmonious piece about golden sheaves of wheat and picks up the receiver._

_"They what?! Well, stop them! You know what to do, or do I have to do everything around here?"_

_She slams the receiver back down and glares at the Butler._

_“Incompetence. Utter incompetence. I shall have to file a report. After we bring them back, of course.”_

_The choir starts a new piece, a jaunty tune on the pleasures of tapping hammers on nails to build the future._

The chopper comes up from the West. Either it must have been in the air for a while, or the orange box masking as a taxi is slower than Clint had thought. More fascinating than the timetable though are the three white spheres following in the helicopter’s wake, bobbing across the landscape like the last breath of a comic book artist's failing imagination.

“You are not authorized. Turn back now,” a voice comes from the helicopter. It repeats the same phrase over and over, having overtaken the car and now hovering over the road in front of them. 

“Wonder how you get _‘authorized’,”_ Clint says, the words snatched out of his mouth by the turbulence generated by the chopper’s rotors. “And for what.”

Eight keeps driving forward, straight for the helicopter, while the bubbles start to put the squeeze on them from behind. Clever of her, trying to minimize the available space between the things chasing them. The balls may be impervious to the cutting blades, but the chopper won’t react well to hitting them and, while lives may be cheap here, the loss of flying assets would probably create some undesirable paperwork.

More importantly, Clint suspects Eight shares his view that death by chopper would be preferable to another choking encounter with those goddamn rubber things. 

“Turn back now and you will not be harmed,” the speaker blares at them now. Just for reassurance, the chopper’s co-pilot leans out of the cockpit brandishing an AK-47; the silhouette is unmistakable.

“Friends of yours up there?” Clint asks Eight pointedly. “They’re using your boys’ toys. Would explain a few things, including the choice of music.”

She is too busy trying to get around the chopper without driving into its skids to turn and glare at him, but does find the time to grit out something impolite in Russian - about Americans and paranoia, if he’s making it out properly. Which is fair enough, because the Soviets are flooding just about every market there is with these weapons, trying to give the ol’ worker’s paradise a piece of the economic miracle; he’s been at the wrong end of a few of them in his day. Their captors could be from anywhere.

“I think this answers how far we'll get in this soapbox.” She calls out to him over the noise, a minute or so into the standoff, one hand on the wheel and the other grinding the clutch. “If we turn around, they may let us stay in the car. Unless you prefer walking, or riding back stuck to the outside of one of those things.”

Well, _‘escaping’_ sure was fun while it lasted.

“Twist my arm,” he says. “Let’s drive back.”

Eight flips the car into reverse for a quick three-point turn, rips off her cap and waves it at the chopper pilot in a gesture of surrender. The rubber ball things make way as she steers the vehicle back towards the village, the chopper escorting them at a thirty-or-so-foot distance until they’re amongst the buildings again. 

Clint rests a foot on the dashboard and a hand on his knee. It looks sufficiently slouched down and relaxed, but braces him should she plan any of her more adventurous turns. The smirk at the corner of her lips tells him that she's sussed him out - a fact he is surprised to find more pleasing than awkward.

Race run for the time being, there's no need to push the taxi to its meagre limits anymore, so their way back is more reminiscent of a lazy afternoon cruise, complete with festive balloons. 

"The one thing I can't get my head around though," he says, picking up on an earlier thread. "Dean Martin? Seriously?" For the most part he doesn’t feel like discussing their failure, however expected it may have been. If he's being perfectly honest with himself, part of him had secretly been hoping this might actually work, against all the odds; having his pragmatic pessimism confirmed stings. "The guy's a fucking drunk, not to mention _totally_ mobbed up!"

"Yes, you did mention that already, but that’s beside the point, isn't it?” Eight is nothing if not game, continuing their conversation as if it had never been interrupted. “Everyone knows, no one cares. He’s smooth as old Scotch, and the music is _fun._ Don't tell me you've never done anything just for the pure, sensual pleasure of it, Nine."

"Does sex count?" 

It's out there before he can call it back, his big mouth on autopilot as usual. _Shit._

Even with her eyes firmly on the road, she doesn't miss a beat.

"Only if you do it right."

_Phew._ Now this is a game he can play.

“Never had any complaints. Maybe I'll let you find out some day."

"I'll consult my dance card," she replies drily, a hint of a smile in her voice, even if the brief glance she shoots him is unreadable. 

One more turn takes them up the incline towards their apartments. 

"Thanks for the trip," Clint offers conversationally as she draws to a stop, not trying particularly hard to hide his relief that the chopper has headed off and the balloons are now nowhere in sight. Maybe it’s because they already got what they wanted out of him? Either way, for a fucked-up escape attempt they’ve gotten off lightly this time. Maybe it’s the striped jacket?

He pats his pocket - here’s hoping the mic and wire she’d slipped into it won’t stick to the lollipop - and retrieves the umbrella from the floor under his feet before jumping out of the car. The real prizes of the day are safe; it remains to be seen whether their little taxi escapade has been enough to throw their captors off the scent..

“I’ve always wondered what life as a red herring was like. Now we know,” he says with a grin.

He watches her reach back into the car to place the chauffeur’s cap on the driver’s seat, a curtain of red locks once again spilling loosely over her shoulder.

"Does your dance card have numbers or names?" he asks, suddenly serious.

Straightening, she gives him a long, still frustratingly inscrutable look.

"Names only, I'm afraid," she replies. The way she searches his face makes him wonder what she takes away from it.

"Good. Because I’m not interested in numbers."

Their eyes lock, something heavy settling in the air between them. She doesn't flinch when he leans in closer, into her personal space, looking over her shoulder and automatically scanning the perimeter around them. He is close enough for his breath to stir her hair when he speaks, too soft for any microphone to pick up. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but to him this feels different; maybe it does to her, a little, as well?

"In case you ever feel the desire to dance to real music: my name is Clint." 

He walks to his house without looking back, feeling her eyes following him inside.

_“I believe they are testing our limits,” Sixteen says, turning away from the bank of screens. “They have killed three of our people now. How many more…”_

_Two waves him off._

_“Extras,” she harrumphs. “Irrelevant.”_

_Her voice betrays a certain irritation, although it is not clear whether it is at the apparent ease with which Eight and Nine are cutting a swath through the village’s population - not to mention this very station - or at the fact that Sixteen should consider the loss worth mentioning._

_Sixteen, unusually, is not deterred._

_“And they have launched three different attempts to escape.”_

_“What you are seeing, my dear Sixteen,” she says, condescension now dripping into her tone like honey, “is two operatives from vastly different backgrounds being allowed to find their rhythm, complementing one another.”_

_Her fingers drum the table echoing the rhythm of the last song of the evening’s performance._

_“Very soon, as soon as they realize that they cannot win, we will have them where we want them: Soviet and American, a unique chemical mixture - primed and ready to give us their best. Perfection exacts a price.”_


	9. Chapter 9

Finding the right place to take inventory of their acquisitions is a challenge - one that will require them to triangulate all the cameras in the immediate neighborhood in the hope of discovering blind spots. Natasha had, of course, noted the locations of the obvious ones during her previous reconnaissance walks, but hadn't bothered to investigate their angles and range. Now is the time.

She combines her calculations with little rambling walks to check out areas where there are obvious large gaps, on the assumption that she might have missed hidden surveillance instruments. Sure enough, she locates several more, but she also comes to the conclusion that full coverage is not something their captors have aspired to, or been able to achieve.

Whether their prison is privately or government-funded, somewhere there exists a nameless beancounter, forced to allocate finite budgets to both sets and surveillance equipment . The village itself must have cost a pretty penny to set up, even if the extras are being paid only in food, shelter and regular laundry services for their clothes, linens and brains - with resulting constraints for camera purchases. Whatever the reason for the blind spots, Natasha gratefully and meticulously maps them out, ranking them in order of utility.

In the meantime, Nine, sitting on the little patio between their houses with his feet on the picnic table and his chair kicked back, is whiling away his day, idly whittling a stick of wood with one of the inferior knives from his kitchen drawer. The source of his amusement is a decorative tree he’d ripped out of the garden along the path into the village - much to their nosy neighbor’s chagrin, who apparently considers this an act of botanical vandalism.

As for Natasha, she’d simply enjoyed the view of his straining muscles from her front window, suspecting that his distractingly well-defined shoulders would have ripped apart his jacket, had he not decided to divest his top half of everything but a white singlet for the occasion.

“But Number Nine,” Number Eleven had whined as he was doing the deed. “It is such a lovely tree! How _could_ you…”

“Did you know that yew trees are poisonous?” he’d replied cheerfully. “The needles of this baby, cooked up into a big pot of tea, would be enough to kill everyone in this village. _Surely_ you wouldn’t want something this dangerous growing right next door to you?”

Intriguingly, the village garbage patrol makes an extra visit that afternoon, removing every last twig Nine had left lying around from his tree extraction - except for the stick, which he has declared essential to his mental health and well-being. 

“What exactly are you doing with that tree?” Natasha asks, frowning. 

It’s not like he’s wasting precious time, since they can’t start on their project until she picks the ideal location, but watching him sit there like some country bumpkin, whittling on a stick, is oddly disconcerting. Moreover, he’d never bothered to put his jacket back on after that initial lumberjack moment; it’s been casually tossed over the barber- pole camera and he is sitting there bare-chested, displaying an impressive set of pectoral and abdominal muscles. To top it off, there’s a trail of sweat running down his neck. 

“Makin’ a nice, long stick,” he drawls and she suspects that he knows exactly what she’s been thinking. The tongue he half-sticks out to wet his lower lip confirms it. “Them things is goshdarn useful, they is.”

“And for what, may I ask?” She tries hard not to watch a droplet of sweat as it makes its way towards his chest. 

“That’s classified information.” His grin widens as she throws an eraser at his head. He catches it without looking and tosses it over his shoulder, where it lands precisely on top of the jacket. _Show off._

“With skills like that, you should join a circus,” she teases.

He barks a short laugh.

“Darlin', you have no idea.”

His decision to entrust her with his name last night appears to have changed him. Not only does he seem more relaxed, it's as if some kind of burden has lifted from his shoulders - it is tempting to do likewise. 

But the truth, as she learned early on in life, is not the same thing to all people; it can be a gift or a curse. As much as she appreciates having him as an ally, for now and for all hidden eyes and ears around them he will remain Nine. And she will remain Eight and on her guard. 

He’s still whittling away, now carving deep notches into each end of his increasingly narrow and bendy stick, when she comes to a conclusion about the location for their project.

“The woods,” she declares and puts her pencil down. 

“The woods?” he repeats, flicking a small chip into the flower bed with a knife that must be as dull as a ruler by now, cutting only by the sheer force of his will. “Sounds way too obvious.”

He isn't wrong. But again, it all comes down to the economics of oppression: no doubt it would have been too labour-intensive for the people running this place to stick cameras where they’d just get obscured by leaves for much of the year, let alone to clear the forest to improve the sightlines. Of course, if this is a blind spot they must know it, so care will still need to be taken. They will be seen heading that way and may well be followed.

She frowns at the sight of Nine’s feet on the patio table and raises her voice for the benefit of Rose Lady - his name for Number Eleven is rubbing off on her, how very odd - who has chosen this moment to brave the outside world again. 

“Since you’ve effectively ruined this as an outdoor eating surface for civilized people, I guess we will have to go on a picnic.”

He swings his feet down off the table and tests his stick for flexibility. Whatever he is looking for, the thing seems to have it; he looks sufficiently pleased enough with himself to ignore the dig.

“Picnic? I’m in. You think those woods come with birds? I collect feathers as well as sticks.”

The next morning comes with the promise of a beautiful day. The sun is out, there’s not too much wind, and just enough clouds in the sky to make it reasonable for them to carry an umbrella.

Mrs. Rose, having heard of their plans the night before, helpfully recommends the café’s picnic baskets, which they gladly accept - devil you know, and all that. Sure enough, a quick inspection reveals a small listening device in the lid. Eight makes quick work of it once they reach the edge of the woods and pockets the parts as a bonus.

Clint slings the large tablecloth they have requisitioned as a picnic blanket negligently over his shoulder, so he can carry the basket in one hand and his walking stick in the other. At least that’s what he is using the stick for now, even though a closer inspection would reveal it to be a bit too thin for that purpose. Most likely Eight has noticed that he is not putting a lot of actual weight on it, but she refrains from commenting. 

Once they’re in the woods and safe from prying ears again, Clint gives in to his curiosity. 

“So I read in _Dear Abby_ that it's a sign of significant trust when a woman feels comfortable enough to kill someone in front of a guy. Tell me, what made you change your mind about me?”

By now he's become quite good at spotting the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth that tells him she's trying not to smile. Maybe he should rethink his decision not to challenge her to a game of poker; she does have tells.

"You can't blame me for being suspicious, Nine. What was I supposed to think? From a strategic point of view it made perfect sense to introduce an attractive fellow prisoner to instigate a possible emotional connection which could lead to... Why are you grinning like that?"

"Did you just call me pretty?"

"You didn't listen to a word I just said, did you?" She rolls her eyes.

"I did! You said I was attractive."

"That was an assessment based purely on physical attributes that traditionally resonate positively with women and, in certain cases, men. It says absolutely nothing about my personal preferences."

"Oh yeah?" His grin never wavers. " _I_ think it says this woman thinks I'm pretty."

"How is it that you can be this annoying and still nobody has killed you yet?"

"Oh, they've tried, believe me, but I guess I'm just too pretty to die."

She doesn’t dignify this with a reply and instead points to a clearing ahead.

“There’s our spot. Make yourself useful, pretty boy, and spread the blanket.”

“Don’t give me lines like that,” he says, but swaggers ahead to do as he's told.

She sets the picnic basket down in the middle, takes out two apples, two egg salad sandwiches, a thermos of coffee with two cups, the crooner’s microphone and wire, and the dead bug. Clint removes the lollipop from his jacket pocket.

“Here’s your glue,” he says. “Sorry about the lint.“

He lowers himself down across from her on the tablecloth, now serving as a blanket, and starts pulling out some of the cotton threads, red and white. They’re long enough, but he’ll need three or four to make a sturdy enough string - and ideally, he’ll make a couple of reserve ones.

“What are you doing?” Eight frowns absently, fiddling with the electronics. 

“Experiment.” He gets up and ties the ends of his threads to a twig protruding from a bush at the edge of the clearing. That should help with braiding the strings. “Doesn’t look like you need me right now? Although do let me know if you need some of that lolly primed for stickiness; my tongue is your tongue.”

Sadly she doesn't take him up on the offer. He watches for a few seconds as she takes the microphone apart like a pro before turning to his own handiwork. Five minutes later and he has twisted the tablecloth threads into three workable, sturdy strings - striped of course, like practically everything in this place. That leaves only one thing.

“So, for the antenna you just need the central bit of the umbrella, yes?” he asks. “Can I have the stretchers?”

One of the things Natasha genuinely appreciates about Nine is that he trusts her to do her job without interfering, and she does try to reciprocate, truly she does. That said, she cannot for the life of her figure out why exactly he is ruining a perfectly good tablecloth, and she is sorely tempted to ask.

But there isn't much time for idle contemplation. Building a transmitter, however primitive, is delicate work and the materials they’ve collected aren’t exactly the best, nor does she have any useful tools apart from her hands.

“Can you…” she starts saying, but he is already by her side, handing her the center tube of the umbrella, stripped of the stretchers, ribs, and fabric. That’s another thing she likes: he is quite content to be on the same wavelength with her and doesn’t have to be told what she needs. “Thanks.”

“You want the springs?” he asks, holding them out for her in the palm of his hand. She picks them up, careful not to drop them as the touch of her fingers on his warm skin gives her an unexpected jolt. She briefly wonders whether he’s felt it too, but he has already turned away again.

Stretched out, the springs provide just enough wire to be useful. The transmitter is starting to take shape. Now can she use the decorative tip to…

Something hisses past her, followed by a thwanging sound. 

_What the…?_

She turns to see a thin metal spoke embedded in the trunk of a small pine tree, still vibrating.

“Oops.” Nine coughs, sounding apologetic. “Those umbrella stretchers aren’t quite straight and I don’t have any fletchings yet for balance. Also, they’re short and the tablecloth threads make for shitty string, so I can’t draw as far as I’d like. It’ll take me a couple more shots to figure out trajectory and range.” He stops for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. “At least this joint is small, so earth curvature won’t be an issue.”

He is standing there, at the edge of the clearing, holding his walking stick, except it now has a curve and a string.

“Is that a longbow?” Natasha asks, not bothering to hide the impressed surprise in her voice. 

“Yup.” He nods and walks over to retrieve his improvised arrow from the tree. “Those brolly bits won’t go through clothes, but they should work in your average eye socket. You can build a radio; I’m more old school, I’m afraid.”

“No kidding,” she says. “You could have told me that’s what you were up to.”

He gives her a sideways glance from under pale lashes.

“Wanted to make sure it’d work first.” He sniffs. “You ever try turning a piece of tree, an umbrella, and a tablecloth into a weapon? No, wait.” He looks at the almost complete telegraphic transmitter. “Don’t answer that. You probably have and it turned out boss.”

The arrow retrieved, he nocks it again, his piped village jacket an incongruous backdrop to this medieval harbinger of death.

“Gotcha,” he says and lets go, straight up this time. A wood pigeon falls to the ground, a foot or so from Natasha’s own handiwork, with an umbrella spoke stuck in its chest. The bird flaps once and lies still. 

“Oh, look,” he says. “Fletching.”

_"Number Eighty-eight, what an honour...!"_

_Two executes the customary greeting snappier than usual, but Eighty-eight is not in the mood and does not reciprocate._

_"Save the pleasantries, Two. Status report?"_

_"Certainly, sir. After the incidents covered in my predecessors’ reports, Numbers Eight and Nine have increased cooperative activities. Right now they are having a… a picnic, sir. It is my assessment that given time -"_

_"You have had ample time, Two. We require results. Not romance. No more costly dollhouse fantasies at the expense of the Organization."_

_"But sir, with all due respect, I must insist - !"_

_"And I must refuse! You are not the first Number Two and you will not be the last. Results are what matters."_


	10. Chapter 10

The next couple of days are utterly wasted. It seems that it rains even in Paradise and there is tacit agreement that going out for another picnic when water is running down the hill would only raise eyebrows. Even Rose Lady is staying indoors, although Clint suspects that may be because her neighbors aren’t doing anything worth observing – cause and effect, and all that.

Perhaps this unexpected cooling of heels is a good thing; it allows for a bit of reflection on Clint’s part about what to do with the radio, now that they have it. He assumes Eight, in her own quarters, is doing the same.

It all boils down to: _who are they going to call, and who might actually pick up?_

He suspects that Eight, like him, isn’t exactly the sociable type, so neither of them has close friends or a back-up team to bust them out. Besides, he’s prepared to veto any ‘help’ from the USSR; the KGB would be just as likely to send a nuke as a helping hand, especially if they sense competition in the people running this joint – which they would.

That leaves US agencies, all of which Clint has been trying his best to avoid ever since the Bay of Pigs. Still, the CIA is likely their best bet. All Clint would have to do is mention the words ‘Commie brain laundry’ and they’d be more than happy to help. But of course the village phone book doesn’t include Langley, VA, or ham radio call signs for that matter.

_Fuck._

He is slouching on the couch in what passes as his living room, watching the rain run down the window in sheets. Last time he’d seen anything like this was in Guatemala, where he’d had the good fortune to arrive just in time for the rainy season. The roads had run red with mud, and when they were paved all that happened was you couldn’t see the potholes anymore, and…

Wait. 

_Guatemala._

Where his last employer had dangled future employment prospects before him. The guy’d clearly been part of one of the US alphabet agencies, even if he’d tried very hard to pretend that he wasn’t. Worth a shot? Better than nothing, anyway.

He’d given Clint his contact info, but what the hell was it? 

Call signs are easy, if you know how they’re set up: KC3 for Washington area - assuming his guess about the guy’s affiliations is right. Then three letters, tech class signal. _Letters, letters, letters…_

Most people try to pick the first three letters of their last name, if they can get them. COU? The more Clint thinks about it, the better it sounds, and it doesn’t take him long to convince himself that he’s managed to reconstruct the guy’s business card - which he’d crumpled up and tossed - in his head. 

Time to try and figure out what message to transmit. It’ll have to be short and substantive, in case they only get one shot. And if they want to reel in a Big Fish to help them it’ll need to include a hook, a line, and a sinker. Well, he’s been a red herring once already, may as well become bait.

He is practically whistling when he makes himself a pot of coffee, waiting for the rain to end.

***

The gizmo that Eight built is a radio only by the wildest stretch of the imagination, but its size makes it possible for her to slip it inside the waist of her skirt and cover up the bulge with one of those capes. With the receding rain front still visible over the mountains it is perfectly reasonable for Clint to carry an umbrella, which in turn conceals the parts for the makeshift antenna.

His convertible walking stick he leaves behind, to preserve it - and the very few arrows that he’s been able to make, hidden in the cutlery drawer - for When The Time Comes. The fact that Eight doesn’t ask him about it suggests that she agrees, even though they don’t discuss it. It comes as a pleasant surprise to Clint that having a partner doesn’t mean having to explain everything; an interesting discovery for someone who’s worked without a safety net for as long as he has. 

She seems to feel that too, judging by the small smile she gives as he falls into step beside her. Maybe they both got lucky? Funny, that it’d take this chi-chi POW camp to bring them together.

They head for the seaside this time, not the woods; predictability is never good, plus the open space should help with the signal, assuming his stab-in-the-dark call sign guess actually works. 

Passing one of the ubiquitous cameras as they reach the sea promenade, Eight complains loudly about the bright sun and how it might damage her pale skin. Clint tut-tuts sympathetically and makes a remark about genuine redheads that gets him a supposedly playful - but impressively substantive - elbow. 

He laughs in appreciation and, all gentleman again, leads her up to the sea wall, where they share a few theatrically meaningful glances before he sits down. Like this, they are the same height and it doesn't feel out of place at all when Eight nudges his knees apart to step between them. Her eyes don't leave his as she takes the umbrella and unfolds it, now a parasol, effectively hiding the two of them from prying eyes and striped camera poles. He catches the spare spokes effortlessly as they slide out.

The radio is quickly assembled in Clint’s lap; as agreed, he takes on the tapping while Eight coquettishly twirls her umbrella.

_‘KC3COU - Hawkeye here. Decided to take u up on job offer.’_

“Are you sure?” Eight asks curiously, having followed his Morse taps. “Offering yourself up to the CIA like that. You don’t strike me as the type. Also, isn’t that code name a bit too on the nose to be _code?”_

Clint shrugs off the jibe. His past may be colorful, but he is who he is and there’s no point denying that. As for the offer of service, he’s given the matter some thought and, honestly, what else does he have to bargain with than the one thing his contact had actually asked for? He had been extremely interested in _Hawkeye’s_ special skills...

“Small price to pay,” he says, his fingers continuing to do their dance on the little lever. 

_‘Complication: currently prisoner of foreign intel service...‘_

“Couple of years of paid employment, no more stripes except on the flag on my patch? Plus, unlike the people you worked for, the US government will actually let you quit if you hate the job.”

That all said, It’s hard to ask someone for help getting you ‘out’ if you don’t know where the place you want to get out of actually is, so they’d agreed to outline the issue with the chopper controls instead. With any luck, there are some techs at the other end with useful advice - and if nothing comes back, or the message is intercepted, at least there’s no information in it that their captors don’t already know. 

A few more taps and Clint signs off with his codename. He slips the device into his pocket.

"We should probably get back before they call curfew," he murmurs, barely audible over the sound of the sea below.

"I sure hope they bought it," she replies, all business as she guides his elbow so that his hand lands low on her hip, visible as she hitches the umbrella higher. At his raised eyebrow, she rubs her palm forcefully back and forth across her lips a few times, causing them to plump and redden most deliciously. Before he can fully recover from the sight, she has quickly done the same to him, a faint waxy feel making him guess he's also received a hint of her pale lipstick in the process. His eyes stay glued to her mouth, appearing thoroughly kiss-bitten and inviting. 

"You know, there's another way we could have made that look believable," he croaks before common sense can kick in, his voice rough with unwise desires curling in his gut. 

She re-folds the umbrella and steps out of the bracket of his knees; he'd like to think it’s with genuine reluctance, but who can really tell with her?

"I'm sure there is." She wipes the pad of her thumb across her lower lip pensively, eyes never leaving his. "Another time and place, maybe we can test that theory."

His face tingles with the memory of her palm, his heart and certain other parts of his anatomy with the implications.

One more reason for them to get out of here alive.

"We appreciate your cooperation," Number Seventy-One, the lackey in the turtleneck, says amicably as he sets the inevitable tea set down on a folding table and pours two cups.

The taxi had been waiting for her when they'd returned from their clandestine radio session, but, since they asked for her alone, Natasha can't decide whether it's in direct relation. The round office's main console is blinking at irregular intervals; in the quiet room the gurgling of a new, green lava lamp that usually blends into the background is now loud and clear.

There is no time for further contemplation as the sliding doors open again and Two appears. A new, female, number Two, just like Nine had said.

"Number Eight, how lovely of you to join us," she greets with false cheer, her steps brisk and efficient as she crosses the room. She hesitates over the tea tray, picking up both cups and offering Natasha a choice before blowing on the surface of the other.

"It was about time us girls had a civilized talk, don't you agree?"

Two perches on the side of the console and winks conspiratorially over her cup. The whole display of solidarity is as fake as it is puzzling and Natasha merely raises an inquiring eyebrow, sipping her own tea. Two's smile grows wider.

"I spent a long time studying you and your exploits - oh, don't look at me like that, you have quite a reputation, if you know who to ask. You may be wondering why I am telling you this. I can see it in your face. Of course you know about us knowing about you. But why not take a minute to really let that... _sink in."_

Two cocks her head, giving her guest a hawkish once-over.

"I think you'll agree that some situations require a smarter approach than brute force - a gentler, more feminine touch, if you will." Her hand twirls in a vaguely illustrative manner, wavy afterimages of her fingers shimmering in complementary colors. "How goes that old saying? You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

Two's voice echoes oddly in Natasha's ears and her heart rate speeds up as her mind catches up. The other woman gently takes the empty cup from her limp hand, her smile strangely satisfied and sincere for the first time.

"Or, in some instances, with tea."

The room starts spinning. The sensation of Two's dry, cold fingers on Natasha's forehead is unpleasant but grounding. Opening her eyes - when did she close them? - Natasha looks up at a different, much more familiar face and the recognition makes her shudder.

_"My little spider,"_ Madame B. says fondly, and the Russian of her childhood wraps around Natasha's mind like a down comforter. _"I'm so glad you've finally come home."_

Natasha lets herself be maneuvered from the chair and onto the ground without resisting, not even attempting to stop her head from being pillowed on the older woman's lap. Something isn't quite right about this familiarity, but it's been so long since she's been touched with kindness that she submits almost gladly. Gentle fingers card through her hair. Natasha feels exceedingly fuzzy around the edges. Maybe she's done something very right to receive this much affection from her usually so distant surrogate mother.

_"I was so sad to see you leave, child,"_ Madame B. continues, her soft words as soothing as her hands. _"But how impressed we are with what you have accomplished since! You have been a credit to your training and proven yourself both to the Motherland and to me."_ Her breath tickles Natasha's face; Natasha wishes that were the only reason she shudders, but when her former matron bends even lower the scent of roses surrounds them both like a cloud.

Consciousness drags and bubbles, like the inside of the lava lamp glowing softly on the credenza behind Madame B. One could get lost in the bubbles of light, rising, dissolving....

Natasha shivers, hiding her face in the folds of her mentor's dress. _"I always knew you would make me proud,"_ Madame B. praises.

Natasha is a child running for her life through an obstacle course. _"If you have air left for crying, you haven't been running fast enough!"_ Madame B. scolds.

Natasha is older, breaking one of her sisters’ neck as the final test in hand-to-hand training, cheeks dry but stomach heaving. _"Pathetic. You should have been drowned with the rest of the failures,"_ Madame B. sneers.

Natasha is a young woman on a gurney, being wheeled to graduation, a rare slim smile on Madame B.'s face the last thing she sees before anaesthesia takes her.

_"We are so proud of who you have become, little spider. This village, it is realizing the potential for order the Red Room was lacking. We accept none but the absolute best. You deserve to be here, clever girl."_

Natasha is on the floor in number Two's office and the woman, who is too kind to be the real Madame B., smiles down on her with cruel calculation, unaware that her mask is slipping. And still, the lie feels so good, recognition and approval so long overdue.

The soft hand upon her brow. The nimble fingers separating tangled curls. The voice purring words of comfort.

_"We know what you do best, little spider. Don't waste your talent on going it alone and taking work that is so far beneath you. Imagine what you'll be able to achieve with our help. And, who knows, if you turn the American for us, maybe we'll let you keep this one."_

Grief clenches around Natasha's heart like a metal fist and, for a weak moment, she wishes she could _believe;_ that the drugs in her system were strong enough to make her. But they are no match against the resilience the real Red Room has drilled into her over the years. The illusion fades just as the last bubble reaches the top of the lamp behind Madame B.

_"I won't disappoint you again,"_ Natasha lies.

He's sitting outside whittling away at a random piece of wood when the car pulls up and delivers Eight back to their mutual front yard. It's impossible to miss how she refuses the hand offered to help her out of the vehicle and how she pulls herself up straight, focusing resolutely on her front door and walking with measured, unwavering steps towards her house.

If he didn't know any better, Clint would say she looks like someone one maraschino cherry away from falling-down drunk trying their hardest to appear sober. 

Nothing indicates that he's expected to stay away. The driver, a young Asian woman with a thick black braid throws him a cheerful, unconcerned, "Be seeing you!" as she drives off.

With a few long strides, he's next door, the entrance magically opening by itself as always.

"Eight?"

She's standing with her back to him in the middle of the room, hands curled into fists at her sides, as if the drive that had propelled her forward has just run out, leaving her stranded where she stands - Coppelia, bereft of both engine and soul.

Carefully, Clint steps around her into her field of vision, a quick assessment giving no indication of superficial injury, as little as that means. Crouching down slightly to meet her eyes, he counters her wild-eyed expression with a hesitant, reassuring smile. 

"Hey," he all but whispers, what with everything about her giving off frightened animal vibes. "Remember me? Your strategically handsome neighbor?"

While she's not rolling her eyes at the joke, she at least looks at him now. Clint smiles reassuringly, venturing to place a gentle hand on her arm. 

"How are you holding up there, honey?"

A sequence of complicated emotions passes over her face, settling on blank fear.

"I told them nothing!" she exclaims with a desperate, trembling voice and something in his chest clenches painfully at seeing her so utterly unsettled for the first time. 

"That wasn't my main concern," he replies truthfully. For a split-second, she just looks at him in disbelief, then her face falls and she throws her arms around his neck. Clint wraps his own around her waist, easily taking her weight when their height difference has her balancing on the tips of her toes. 

If she says something it's lost in the crook of his neck where she is hiding, the hiccuping tremors of successfully suppressed crying reminding Clint painfully of his own younger self. 

"We'll get out of here," he vows quietly into the red riot that is her hair. "I'll get us out of here if it's the last thing I do, Eight."

She grows still against him and, when her hand cups the back of his head, Clint thinks for a heart-stopping second that she will pull him down into a kiss.

Instead, she angles his head to reach his ear - she really is short - and whispers just a single word: _"Natasha."_


	11. Chapter 11

Natasha wants nothing more than to stay wrapped in his embrace forever, but a sudden clicking sound inside his pocket disrupts the moment. He twists a little to the side, as if to silence the disturbance with a flick of his jacket.

“Now what?” he says, a little too sharply, but then catches himself. _“Oh, shit.”_

Reaching into his pocket, he fishes out the little radio.

Quickly, she pushes away from him and breathes deep, trying hard to find her composure and hide her embarrassing display of emotions. Wiping a nervous hand over her thankfully dry eyes, she's shocked to find her fingers shaking. When she finally manages to focus, the clicking resolves into a single word: _...confirm._ Confirm what?

“Shit,” he says again, indicating that this is all he has heard as well. He turns all business and starts tapping.

_Repeat. Confirm?_

_Place we met._

Nine - Clint - looks at her over the small machine, his eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and pure elation.

_Guatemala,_ he taps. 

Guatemala? What could the Americans have been doing in Guatemala to bring in a freelance assassin… 

Natasha forcibly stops herself from pursuing the thought. The only intel to be gathered here and now is whatever may be coming from this radio she built, from the unknown contact of a man she knows next to nothing about. A man she has decided to trust with her name and her life against every thought, every instinct, and every memory that had been drilled or planted into her mind until it became her own. Unbidden, panic wells up inside her, closing like a hand around her throat.

_“Don’t waste your talent going it alone,”_ Two had said, with the voice of her matron, and for that part, she'd been right.

Natasha lunges for the desk drawer and brings out pen and paper.

_Ready,_ she nods, not entirely trusting her voice to stay steady, but all the more determined.

Apparently _Guatemala_ was the correct reply. The little radio starts clacking with a speed that would put a machine gun to shame. Helicopter specs, descriptions of technical controls she has never heard of, and coordinates. The beauty of Morse Code is that everything is spelled out though and so she doesn’t bother to think, she just writes. 

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Clint nod. The information seems to make more sense to him than it does to her. To her surprise, she welcomes that knowledge; everyone has their specialties and theirs seem to complement each other rather usefully. 

It seems like forever, but the staccato burst of information exhausts itself in a couple of minutes. Clint taps a brief _‘ACK’_ and the little radio falls silent again. 

He reaches for her paper, which she hands over without question, and studies her writing with a frown of concentration. Having evidently committed the contents to memory, he hands the paper back to her and gives a lopsided grin. 

"Care to join me for a late afternoon snack?"

"See, this is how you ask a lady out in style," she says, as she rips it in half and then into smaller, swallowable pieces. “I'll make us a nice cup of hot village tea to wash it down."

_“They are ready to fly the coop.”_

_“Shouldn’t we stop them, Number Eighty-eight?”_

_“No. They have earned their victory.”_

_The screen shows an attendant at the helicopter pad being felled by a projectile that looks suspiciously like an arrow, appearing out of nowhere. Before his comrades have time to react, two shadowy figures proceed to take them down, one by one. They move with military precision, as if they have been rehearsing for this moment for years; bodies drop to the tarmac like marionettes whose strings have been cut by invisible scissors._

_Everything has its price._

_The man climbs into the pilot seat, while the woman swings into the cabin beside him, and starts working on the instrument panel with flying fingers. A few seconds later the helicopter lifts off just as the image disappears and is replaced by static._

_The small smile that appears on Eighty-eight’s face could almost be called indulgent. He takes a cigar out of his jacket pocket and taps it on the desk._

_“What you observe here is a triumph of the will, Number Two. It is a beautiful thing.”_

"I hope you remembered to pack your dancing shoes, honey, 'cause it looks like we’re gonna be waltzin' right outta this joint," Clint quips. His smile is strained as he swipes at a bead of sweat running down the side of his face; the speed with which he had located and disabled the external controls in the chopper’s instrument board had been something to behold.

Natasha huffs to hide a laugh.

“By my estimate, we’re headed around 215 miles South-East. We'll be out of their reach soon enough, Clint."

He focuses single-mindedly on flying the chopper, awaiting the practical verdict on whether his contact’s instructions are correct. It's hard to miss his jawline tensing up and his knuckles whitening where he's gripping the cyclic stick, as if he expects to have the controls yanked out of his hands again any minute now. 

Natasha can tell by his sudden double-take that he almost missed her first casual use of his name. She watches the obviously pleased expression play over his face in the reflection of the window. How can such a good operative be so unguarded with his emotions? By now, she knows him well enough to understand that he probably wouldn't even consider that a weakness were she to point it out to him. 

She shakes off the thought and checks the Morse signals one more time to be sure their heading is correct.

_51.9977° N, 0.7407° W._ She shakes off the thought and checks the Morse signals one more time to be sure.

Natasha looks down at the village as it recedes from view. Behind them, the bell tower becomes ever smaller, as does the town square. With the tide coming in, the wardens are ushering residents off the beach and back up the steps toward the Old People's Home. Or maybe it’s not the tide they’re moving them away from...

“Incoming,” Clint snarls as he banks the chopper away from the beach, where a line of black-clothed figures spills out of a transport vehicle; both it and the men must have been kept hidden somewhere in the serenity of the village . Sure enough, the whizzing of bullets cuts through the air outside, followed by the delayed ack-ack-ack sound of the AK-47s they had seen during their previous, half-hearted escape attempt. Some of the bullets hit the rotor blades, creating a noise as if someone had thrown a handful of coins in a spinning drum, but don’t interfere with their operation.

Clint swings the chopper around the bell tower, effectively cutting off the angle of fire, but losing the advantage of the fastest getaway route in the process. They’re back over the square again, where she had first seen those oddly lethal white balls and sure enough - 

“Fucking things,” he spits as the top of the bell tower opens up and spits forth a series of white balls, like a child blowing bubbles through a pipe. They gain height quickly, forming a veritable curtain between the chopper and the mountains. Gunfire on one side, lethal balloons impervious to rotor blades on the other.

“Up,” Natasha shouts. _“Up.”_

He looks at her for a second.

“You wanna bet that these things run out of range before our blades run out of air?”

“What have we got to lose?”

Well, their lives, obviously, but Clint just grits his teeth and shrugs.

“Here goes nothin’,” he says and pulls up the cyclic stick.

Up and up they go, the square and the beach and the tower getting smaller and smaller... but the balls keep coming. A cloud of them now. So many that they obscure the village from view. Natasha wonders briefly what would happen if the chopper landed on them - would they hold it up? Would it sink in?

The helicopter starts to lurch and rattle even as Natasha’s ears are beginning to pop. Breathing is getting less... efficient. 

“Air getting thin,” Clint remarks, sounding remarkably cool although he is probably just preserving oxygen. “Another hundred meters and we’ll be losing lift.”

Natasha forces herself to breathe in long, deliberate breaths and looks out to the side. The carpet of white balls is not coming closer anymore.

“If you can keep this height you can go straight,” she gasps, the words taking almost all the air she has in her lungs. “I think they may have reached maximum…”

She is starting to feel dizzy, but he must have gotten the message. Holding the chopper level against all the dips and drops in the thinning air outside, he starts moving it forward, towards the mountains. Leaving the white balls underneath and behind them as they go. 

If Clint's description was accurate, they've already come farther than he had in his previous attempt. A hesitant beginning of hope tightens Natasha’s chest as much as the need to breathe does, but feeling infinitely better. 

“Seems like we made it past the perimeter.” His voice, more gravelly than usual, shakes her from her thoughts. “Once we’re in the hills, I’ll drop altitude. Not before. Too risky.”

Natasha nods and sinks back in her seat, focusing on taking in as much air as she can. It doesn't take long at all before they’re over the mountains and into much lower foothills, covered in green meadows that are ruled with hedgerows and dotted with sheep. 

How he stayed awake to fly the helicopter is difficult to fathom, but her training had mentioned that snipers can lower their breath count... His voice dispels her musings.

“Any idea yet where those coordinates are taking us?” he asks. “Maybe we should just… I dunno... set down in one of those fields, grab a car, and go somewhere else?”

Natasha chews the inside of her lip in contemplation while she keeps scanning the horizon. He’s not wrong; the thought has occurred to her as well. There is no way to be sure that whoever responded to their message isn’t part of the same elaborate game they’ve been trapped in all this time.

“Let’s do a fly-by and check it out,” she decides after a moment, nodding to herself. “If anything looks off, we’ll just keep going.”

Or maybe, seeing them non-compliant, their captors - or unknown benefactors - will just remotely turn the chopper off and patiently sip their tea as they fall from the sky.

She knows he’s thinking the same thing by the look he gives her before he nods. 

The landscape turns hilly for a while. New villages and small towns come into view, with different churches and different market squares, noticeably less orderly and less technicolor in execution than their erstwhile prison. Picturesque ribbons of country roads and the occasional river meander through green fields and forests. Sunshine reflects off a blue lake dotted with sailboats, possibly a regatta? The casual serenity is jarring. 

“Must be Sunday,” Clint says, wonder in his voice, and it’s that observation which finally convinces Natasha that they have well and truly broken free. Below them are genuine people in those tiny houses and boats, living ordinary, unnumbered, unscripted lives - free from artificial cheer, robotic smiles, and sinister weather balloons. Because Sunday is when people with boats go out on the water to sail them, for no other reason than that they want to and that they can.

Natasha suppresses the urge to reach over and do something as sentimental as take Clint's hand, the urge to reassure herself that they've almost made it close to overwhelming. When she looks over she finds that he's already smiling at her and he bridges the distance to give her fingers a brief, reassuring squeeze.

They’re over a city now - no way whoever has been controlling their lives could control that many people - and the chopper’s communications system crackles to life; an excited voice demands to know why they haven’t filed a flight plan and where do they think they’re headed? Clint ignores it and keeps going, but makes a point of giving the now-visible airport a wide berth.

Another half hour and they are approaching their destination. A town, near the edge of which there is a park that is fringed in turn by a series of barrack-like buildings. In the centre of the park sits a mansion, one of those Georgian confections with a copper-roofed turret and -

“I know this place,” Natasha blurts out, years of Red Room study and analysis suddenly coming into sharp focus.

“That good or bad?” Clint snaps, straightening as if bracing for impact.

Natasha stills for a moment, her mind racing through everything she knows about Western intelligence history, methods, objectives, and capabilities.

“Good, I think. This must be Bletchley Park. It’s where the Allies cracked the German communications codes, which helped them win the war. It’s supposedly run by the Post Office now, but we...” she catches herself. “The KGB thinks it’s still used by MI-6.”

Clint spits out an impressive curse.

“MI-6? No fucking way Coulson was a Brit. Wouldn’t touch hot tea. So who’s to say that village isn’t these guys?”

Natasha disagrees.

“If MI-6 or the CIA had anything like the village, the KGB would know. They don’t. But MI-6 _would_ have an interest in getting us out of there, if they knew about it - because they would want us to tell them about the place. I thought that’s why you went to that useful contact of yours in the first place?” She considers for a second. “I say we land. Whoever is down there helped us get out, and we have trade goods.”

Clint gives her a long, hard look. Natasha wonders whether it’s her analysis or the glance at the fuel gauge that convinces him, but he swings the chopper around and brings it down on a grassy patch in front of the main house, dead centre of the coordinates their mysterious benefactors had sent.

“Knock, knock,” he says and kills the engine.


	12. Chapter 12

The landing skids have barely touched the grass when a group of people comes streaming out of the building, led by a tall, dark-haired woman with a single white streak at her right temple. Her confident stride is in no way diminished by the fashionable yet understated heels on her feet. For a chilling moment she reminds Natasha of Madame B., but it soon becomes obvious that an inherent air of authority is the only thing the women have in common. In fact, she gifts the disembarking newcomers with a genuine smile that even Natasha finds herself unreasonably drawn to.

“You got our message!” the woman exclaims and her voice is pure delight. “I am so glad. Welcome to the British station of the _Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage and Law-Enforcement Division_ \- S.H.I.E.L.D. for short. I’m Peggy Carter. _Director_ Carter, if you will.”

***

Director Carter leads them into a quaint, old-fashioned sitting room, as informal and cozy as possible for what Natasha assumes is a debrief and a long way from the deliberately hip office the village puppeteers prefer. Despite these people being ostensibly on their side, Natasha finds it reassuring to see Clint just as vigilant beside her, watching her back as much as she does his.

Carter motions for them to sit and an unassuming man, sharply dressed and with thinning hair, closes the door behind them before pouring four cups of coffee. The smell of it is so strong and bitter that Natasha wrinkles her nose, but Clint accepts gratefully, making a noise that feels rather inappropriately private as he takes his first sip. 

Carter cradles her cup in both hands and prompts, "Whenever you're ready."

Behind her, the man opens the button of his suit jacket as he sits on a chair, with a shorthand pad flipped open on his knee and a golden mechanical pencil poised ready in his hand. A couple of silent hangers-on sit unobtrusively on chairs pressed against the wall - notetakers perhaps or muscle, in the event one of the new arrivals decides to bolt.

"Mister Coulson," Clint greets him, likely more for her benefit than etiquette, as she watches the man's lips quirk into the faintest of smiles. 

"Pleased to see you reconsidered my offer, Mister Barton," he replies evenly.

"Where are my manners? I gather you, Mr. Barton, will remember Agent Coulson here from Guatemala," Carter interjects, even though Natasha doesn't believe for a second this woman ever acts out of anything but calculation. Privately, she makes a mental note of her recently minted ally's last name as the Director continues, "...but I don't think any of us have had the pleasure of meeting your comrade-in-arms." 

The way she looks at Natasha reminds her of why she’d first thought she resembled Madame B. Yes, there's authority in her bearing, but also an air of unflinching determination and the wit to learn what she sets her mind to. What she lacks is the omnipresent underlying cruelty, but for all Natasha knows she's just a better actress.

It's not clear to her how Clint intends to deal with to these people. The way he has sunk into the settee next to her borders on calculated impudence and tells her nothing. But if the past weeks have taught her anything, it is that she may have to adapt and experiment with partnership, at least for a while. 

Her head held high, Natasha makes her decision: "Pleased to meet you, Director Carter. My name is Natasha Romanoff."

The debrief reminds Clint of a trip to the Principal’s Office, something he’d had to do rather often considering how little time he’d actually spent in schools. Maybe his offer of service to this outfit had been a bit hasty? He looks over at Natasha, but she seems to be taking the whole thing in her stride, so maybe he just needs to bite the bullet. At least this time there’s someone sitting on the bench with him.

_Romanoff._ He looks forward to some time alone when he can let it roll off his tongue. The response that their helpers have to her name, on the other hand, is interesting.

“We know who you are,” Coulson says with a teensy little smile, one that reminds Clint of Natasha’s and makes him wonder whether they teach that sort of thing in spy school. “And where you came from. But thank you for your honesty, Miss Romanoff. We appreciate it.”

"I've come up against another Black Widow before," Director Carter cuts in. "Her skills were quite impressive."

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“I’m surprised you are still here to tell the tale,” she says, a glint in her eye.

Carter’s lips twitch a little in response.

“We reached a temporary understanding,” she says. “And I hope we can do so again with my previous opponent's... _younger sister.”_

To Clint, the exchange is a bit like watching a tennis match between seasoned pros. So his partner is famous? Well, no wonder, really. He may be the Amazing Hawkeye, but Eight - _Natasha_ \- is something else altogether. And unlike him, she fits right in here.

But there’s work to be done and Coulson, in his blandly efficient way, manages to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand. Clint slumps down into the ridiculously overstuffed leather sofa to answer a slew of questions; whatever this SHIELD outfit is, he owes them that much. Clearly Natasha shares this view and he would be happy to let her take the lead in the Q&A, but as it turns out, they see different things - she picks up details, while he takes in the big picture - and those perspectives match up in interesting ways. In the end they end up taking turns, supplementing each other’s statements and, on occasion, finishing each other’s sentences.

Throughout, Coulson and another agent, obviously not important enough - or too much so - to be introduced, take notes. They exchange occasional knowing glances with the Director, who takes it all in her stride and to her credit doesn’t once look at her watch. Clint has the feeling that she’s seen far worse than a village full of puppets on a string, although once in a while she nods silently to herself. Who knows where she was during the War? Going on appearance, she'd have been old enough to do her part. 

The debrief is not entirely one-sided though. In the finest bureaucratic staccato, Coulson delivers a succinct assessment of the village that puts a few things into perspective.

“Your message was well-timed. We became aware of suspicious activity on the East coast of Britain approximately one week ago. It appears to be a form of training camp for a transnational criminal organization that aims to infiltrate and undermine legitimate governments for profit and power. They have apparently perfected certain brainwashing techniques, as evidenced by an operative who allied intelligence services refer to as _‘the Winter Soldier.’”_

Natasha gives a little flinch at that, taking Clint by surprise.

“Friend of yours, Miss Romanoff?” Coulson asks.

“Most consider him a ghost story,” she says, her face an unreadable mask. “But I can confirm he's quite real. The KGB claims to have misplaced him.”

Coulson nods.

“It seems that this organization is looking to recruit trained operatives from all over, with a view to turning and deploying them to its own end. No doubt that’s how you two came on its radar. You both have… very specific skill sets that must have been attractive to them.”

Clint shakes his head. 

“And they built a whole _village_ for that? Isn’t that a bit excessive?”

“Their methods can’t be that sophisticated yet,” Natasha observes. “I wasn’t exactly tempted.”

There’s a funny note in her voice that almost persuades Clint to give her a sharp look, but he lets it go. Whatever the truth is on that point, it’ll be hers to tell. Maybe someday they’ll talk about all this over a bottle of wine or three...

Director Carter chimes in to respond.

“Money does not appear to be an object and they appear to have several bases of operation. The village seems to double as an experimental model for the society they want to create, once their goals are fulfilled. It serves more than one purpose.”

Clint can’t help himself. “Welcome to Paradise,” he snorts.

Undeterred, Coulson continues.

“We had been considering how to place our own operatives inside; you have saved us a great deal of trouble.”

Natasha cocks her head.

“This is a _village._ How did no one know it was there?”

“Oh, we knew it was there,” the nameless agent interjects. “Private property, belonging to some eccentric aristocrat thought to be building a model society. The family matriarch sits in the House of Lords and was purchasing all their produce from local farmers, so no one thought to question it until recently.”

“What changed?” she asks politely, but firmly.

“Black helicopters, white weather balloons. Too much aerial activity there for a private enterprise.”

“We were hoping you could tell us how many genuine civilians might be in that village,” Director Carter interrupts, her voice carrying a steely undertone that Clint recognizes from his commanders in the military whenever they were about to give him particularly tricky orders. “We will need to determine whether we have to use a scalpel to get out the people running the place or whether we can deploy our V-bombers, flatten the place and call it a training mission.” 

“Personally, I’d go for the bombers,” Clint says with conviction. “Happy to fly one myself, if you people are skittish about that sort of thing.”

“We will consider your offer, Mr. Barton,” Director Carter smiles, and it almost looks like she means it.

Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t mess around in its approach to protecting the planet, nor does it hesitate to do business with former carnies or Russian spies. People Clint can do business with and so, apparently, can Natasha. By the end of the debrief they have not only earned the helping hand they’d been given in their escape, but both have job offers ready to be signed.

Considering the fact that she's just signed an agreement of service, Natasha feels a surprising rush of freedom. It helps that, for better or for worse, it's solely her own decision. She carefully caps the pen, placing it right below the drying ink. With a slightly bored air Clint tosses his own carelessly onto the paper next to hers, although the resting position of the pen, in exact parallel to her own, tells a different story.

When she shoots him a small smile, he winks at her in return. 

She rises, looking forward to the unnamed agent taking them to the promised hut where she and Clint will find accommodation, fresh clothing, and hopefully the first bit of privacy either of them has had in four months. Maybe there'll even be time for some recreational music.

But there is one more meeting in store for them before they can rest it seems. Once outside, their guide steers them towards another new arrival, just emerging from a black limousine with shaded windows.

“Thank you, Sitwell,” the newcomer says with a nod. 

The man is middle-aged, well-dressed, and obviously American, with those eternally boyish good looks typical of Hollywood actors. When he shakes their hands in turn his grip is warm, strong, and efficient, like a politician’s. 

“Alexander Pierce, Secretary to the World Security Council,” he says, with an instantly likable, broad smile. “Welcome to SHIELD! You’re natural partners, I’m told. That's good, it's so important to work with people you can trust. My friend Nick Fury is running an operation in New York that will benefit tremendously from your skills. We're glad to have you on board."

He claps Clint on the back, in satisfied acknowledgement of a successful transaction.

"I’m sure you’ll do great things for us. And not just for SHIELD. You’ll help us bring law and order to a grateful world.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _...be seeing you_
> 
> from
> 
>  _AlphaFlyer:_ I didn't think I'd ever do another MarvelBang again but then **Alistra** mentioned The Prisoner in a chat and... well, here we are. Perfect fusion idea is perfect. I remember the Cold War chill of the series when I watched it as a teen; seeing it today is a different experience *coughs*, but definitely one made for the comics! And Ali was just the person to make the whole thing work, with her research, her encyclopedic knowledge of the show, and her willingness to chat through those long pandemic nights and weekends. Thank you for putting up with my control freakishness and my compulsive editing, and for making me brave enough to tackle another long!fic again, after a 4-year drought. And **Inkvoices** \- what is there to say about our brilliant artist and beta reader? One of my earliest friends in MCU fandom, she has relentlessly cheered me up and on whenever I lost the spark, and makes everything she touches so much better. This one's for you, dear friend; I'll go back to Budapest with you anytime.  
>   
>  _Alistra:_ Thank you **Alpha Flyer** for taking this crazy plot bunny of mine and turning it into an espionage extravaganza with me. Your faith in me made me fall back in love with fandom and I'm so grateful. **Inkvoices** deserves at least as much thanks. Not only was she our amazing art co-creator, she thoroughly and patiently beta'ed this behemoth which has become so much better for it. Ink, you are one of the kindest, most eloquent people I have ever had the pleasure to (virtually) meet and working with you and Alpha Flyer has been a genuine highlight of my year. I dedicate this story to **G.** who, among countless other good deeds, introduced me to the twee brilliance of _The Prisoner_ at an impressionable age. I am sure you would have much enjoyed this. 
> 
> Do check out Inkvoices' [**amazing video trailer for _Be Seeing You_**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635027) and make sure to leave her kudos for her beautiful art.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Be Seeing You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635027) by [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices)
  * [Happy Holidays 1965](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28241463) by [Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra)




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